Depp Comes Back As Scrooge For $5M

Johnny Depp's gothic A Christmas Carol, "Ebenezer," premiered in London Monday and opens Nov. 13 in U.S. theaters, and per Variety Depp is taking a $5 million salary, a fraction of his old fee, for his first big studio role in eight years. Cinema owners are being quoted as "optimistic."

The comeback is the machine's favorite instrument, and this time the Comeback Ghost shows up in a fedora. Eight years after his last big studio film, the deal is a pay cut plus box-office bonuses, penance and forgiveness in one line. The $50 million marketing campaign is not about the movie, it is about the transformation: a Comic-Con stop "in character, throwing handfuls of candy at the foot of attendees," a Victorian storefront, a man explaining Scrooge to every outlet that will listen. The movie is the excuse for the transformation. The transformation is the product.

The casting is an allegory the PR team is aware of. He plays a miser visited by three ghosts, publicly humiliated, reminded of who he was, then redeemed. Everyone in Hollywood has seen that documentary. The cinema-owner quotes are the sweet part, because they are the PR machine quoting its own customers. "Some people can't wait. Others are just like, 'Meh.'" That is not focus-group data, that is a room tone. Regal's CEO says "it feels like the character was written for Johnny Depp," which is fine, except the character was written in 1843. But it is on the record, and that is what matters.

The numbers keep it honest. $38 million to make, $50 million to market, tracking a modest $40 million worldwide against a Carrey version that cost $200 million and still took in $325 million. This is not a comeback, it is a recovery. The $20 million Dior deal still runs, Disney is weighing another Pirates movie, and a Lionsgate action picture lands in 2027. The comeback is a business and the business is fine. The ghosts are the only ones not profiting.

YOUR TURN: Is the $5 million pay cut penance or a discount? Would you pay $15 to watch a man in a Scrooge wig throw candy at you? Argue below.