10 years ago, Johnny Depp proved that his best days were over with a major box office bomb

(Welcome to Tales from the box officeour column examining box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, plus what we can learn from them.)

“I only directed something someone else wrote once, and it was a disreputable misadventure from the beginning, and it was as much my fault as anyone else’s.” These are the words of director David Koepp who spoke to him University of California In 2022. The misadventure in question was 2015’s Mortdecai, an international comedy starring Johnny Depp. It was a massive failure both critically and commercially, one that Koep doesn’t seem interested in defending.

Koepp is no stranger to big hits. As a screenwriter, He helped turn “Jurassic Park” into one of the biggest movies of all timeAnd this is just the tip of the iceberg. As a director? It’s a touch more sporadic, but the man knows his way around success. He previously directed the thriller “Secret Window,” which also starred Depp, and turned it into a great little hit. As an actor, Depp shot out of the gate like a rocket and quickly became a favorite star of director Tim Burton. Then, in the early 2000s, he catapulted to stardom thanks to the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise. But as the saying goes, the older they get, the harder they fall – and this film truly marks the beginning of Depp’s great fall from grace.

In this week’s Tales from the Box Office, we take a look at “Mortdecai” on the 10th anniversary of its release. We’ll find out how it came to be, where Depp was during this stage of his career, what happened when it hit theaters, what happened in the wake of its release, and what lessons we can learn from it a full decade later. Let’s dig in, shall we?

The film is based on Kirill Bonfiglioli’s 1972 novel Don’t Point That Thing at Me. It was the first in a series of novels centered around aristocrat Charlie Mortdecai. If this works, it will generate a clear franchise, not much different from how “Fletch” became a short-lived franchise with Chevy Chase in the 1980s. Eric Aronson (“On the Line”) drafted the amendment. It probably helps that Aronson hasn’t had a distinguished credit to his name since.

“Mortdecai” as we know it is about evil art dealer Charlie Mortdecai (Depp), who finds himself in conflict with some angry Russians, a British Mi5, his wife, and an international terrorist all at once. He must travel the world, armed with his good looks and charm, to recover a stolen painting said to contain the key to finding a fortune in Nazi gold.

In 2013, Lionsgate announced that it was expanding its partnership with OddLot Entertainment, which has seen the companies co-finance several projects, including “Draft Day” and “Ender’s Game,” both of which ended with poor performance. It has proven to be a very difficult partnership.

“We are thrilled to expand and extend our long-standing relationship with OddLot founder Gigi Pritzker and her team,” Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger, then Lionsgate co-presidents, said in September 2013. MovieWeb). “Our Ender’s Game and Draft Day partnership has now expanded to include Mortdecai, and we look forward to finding many more images to share in the future.”

More spoilers, but they aren’t involved in many photos. We shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves here, but OddLot Entertainment went under in 2015, the same year this movie opened in theaters. Lionsgate tends to have good luck with mid-budget films But, for whatever reason, the menu that was cooked with OddLot seemed to be poisoned. In the case of this film, star power seemed to save the day.

It should be noted that Depp was as big as a star at this time. In 2003, Pirates of the Caribbean gave Disney one of its biggest and most unexpected franchises. It’s a juggernaut worth $4.5 billion today. A lot of that had to do with Jack Sparrow, who Depp played. He also starred in hit films like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Alice in Wonderland” during the 2000s. It wasn’t completely bulletproof, with bugs like “Public Enemies” being in the mix, but it was a pretty safe bet.

However, things started to catch up with Deb. He’s starred in a few disastrous flops, most notably Disney’s “The Lone Ranger” in 2013.. But everyone misses him from time to time, and this movie had bigger problems. In the case of “Mortdecai,” it was a starring vehicle for the actor that rested largely on his shoulders. He had to prove that he could achieve success outside of the “Pirates”.

Koep and Depp were not the only big names participating here. The stunning ensemble included Gwyneth Paltrow (“Iron Man”), Ewan McGregor (“Star Wars”), Paul Bettany (“The Da Vinci Code”), Olivia Munn (“The Newsroom”), and Jeff Goldblum (“The Grand Budapest”). Hotel”) is also on board. Depp’s girlfriend, Bettany, provided some insight into the actor in a January 2015 interview with HuffPost:

“He doesn’t care, he doesn’t really. He’s never read a review in his life. He loves making film, but he doesn’t watch films. He doesn’t care at all what a critic might think is that it’s a whale swimming in the ocean, and the whale doesn’t notice the barnacles on it.” It’s like, I’m swimming in the ocean, doing my job.

Even if Bettany didn’t mean it that way, that seems rather harsh in light of the film’s failure, let alone what happened later (we’ll come back to that). However, this movie had the “too big to fail” vibe that seems to lurk around doomed projects. Depp’s star power was about to take a major hit, from which she arguably never recovered.

January movies often have a certain atmosphere. It is not generally considered a month in which studios deliver their first-rate material. That narrative has changed a bit in recent years, but as for “Mortdecai,” it has the vibe of a January classic, to its detriment. By this time, franchises had already taken over Hollywood, and selling funny comedies to audiences was difficult anyway. The marketing didn’t help, and the near-universal hatred from critics certainly didn’t help. Writing to RogerEbert.comPeter Sobczynski also described it as “an absolutely bewildering waste of time, talent, energy and money”. It was a recipe for disaster.

Koepp’s ill-fated film hit theaters on January 23, 2015, and was dead on arrival. Opening against The Boy Next Door and Stranger Magic, the film barely cracked the top 10 this weekend, earning just $4.2 million. That didn’t help Clint Eastwood’s film “American Sniper” set a box office recordtaking in a staggering $64.6 million in its fifth weekend. It would go on to gross $547.6 million worldwide.

Meanwhile, “Mortdecai” fell off a cliff in its second weekend, falling nearly 66% with just $1.4 million. It grossed a dismal average of $543 per screen, and theater owners were fed up. The following weekend, it lost nearly 2,400 screens, representing more than 90% of its total, marking one of the largest declines in history. As a result, the film grossed only $7.6 million domestically. It performed even better overseas with $39.5 million for a total of $47.2 million. But given its $60 million budget, which doesn’t take into account marketing, it was a miserable failure.

Through co-financing deals and international pre-sales, Lionsgate has been able to limit its exposure. However, someone – or a large number of people – lost money because of this flop. This was just one of many notable box office bombs to hit theaters in 2015but it helped set the tone. And in a strange development as well Mortdecai, which opened in theaters with an R rating, has been changed to PG-13 For VOD release. This was an obvious desperate measure to try to recover losses.

This flop also had a major impact on Depp’s reputation. What’s more, there was a case that suggested his best days were behind him. Even before this film, Depp’s hot streak was starting to cool. He’s starred in several misfires, including “Dark Shadows,” “The Rum Diary,” “Tusk,” and “Transcendence,” too, as well as “Lone Ranger.” Mistakes began to outweigh hits.

Depp had one more Pirates film under his belt with 2017’s Dead Men Tell No Tales before the wheels really fell off. Shortly thereafter, Depp’s highly publicized split from ex-wife Amber Heard completely wiped out his employable standing in Hollywood. Depp even exited the Fantastic Beasts franchise as Grindelwald amidst the chaos. Not for nothing, but “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” was such a major financial downturn from its predecessor that it was divorced from any controversy.

Although Depp and Heard’s lawsuits are in the rearview mirror, the actor’s career has certainly not recovered. We only get credits like the animated film “Sherlock Gnomes” and little-seen independent films like “Jeanne du Barry.” Didn’t hack anything. In many ways, this film seemed like a point of no return for this once-powerful star.

To what extent Depp will get another crack at movie stardom remains to be seen. There is talk about The actor returns as Jack Sparrow once again in another “pirate” movie.. Does that happen or not? will be determined. Hollywood, if nothing else, tends to replicate success to an almost toxic degree. Studios will over-invest in such things in hopes of recapturing former glory. Bringing Depp back now seems like some sort of idea on steroids.

For Koepp, his takeaway was to never direct a film he didn’t write. A lot of directors work with other writers but everyone also has their own creative process. To his credit, Koepp has only directed one film since 2020, You Must Have Left, which he personally penned. This experience clearly left a mark on him.

As far as “Mortdecai” goes, sometimes things don’t go well. Koepp is a good filmmaker. Lionsgate tried to be smart with the budget. It had a stacked template and solid source material. It’s a reminder that a good movie doesn’t shy away from a minor miracle.

However, this has the too-big-to-fail power that I discussed earlier. In an era where box office success is more elusive than ever, studios are trying to leverage star power as an insurance policy. This can be a good thing. Just look at Oppenheimer for example. But star power alone can’t take you this far. Just look at the huge flop of 2022 that was Amsterdam. This thinking seems to poison the well here. Movie stars are only part of the equation. Without everything else, it doesn’t matter.