As the opening movie of the Cannes Film Festival, there’s a certain amount of inbuilt prestige that comes attached to period drama Jeanne de Barry, never mind the fact it’s been heavily touted as a potential comeback vehicle for Johnny Depp.
Once the single highest-paid star in the industry who comfortably commanded paychecks of at least $20 million for every role he played, the fallen idol has instead been reduced to playing bit-parts in foreign-language features after his personal, professional, and legal misgivings have deemed him nigh-on unemployable in Hollywood.
“Bit-parts” certainly seems to be the key term in this instance, after unsubstantiated stories emerged claiming that director Maïwenn is alleged to have significantly reduced both his screentime and amount of dialogue, which may or may not have anything to do with the fact either he barely speaks a lick of fluent French, or the ongoing speculation (which she didn’t exactly deny) that he’d been a difficult customer during production, which did initially emanate from a celebrity reporter with no connection to the film.
According to the most recent reports, Jeanne du Barry runs for 113 minutes, with Depp only factoring into somewhere between 10 and 15 of them. In addition, he’s said to have very little to say both figuratively and literally, so it could be a case of the would-be comeback being over before it’s even had a chance to get started should he indeed end up being excised from the majority of the film. Then again, he isn’t playing the main character, so his participation amounting to an extended cameo wouldn’t really be all that much of a surprise.
The offers aren’t exactly flowing thick and fast for the former A-lister, so he could really do with a project that actually puts him front-and-center, with Jeanne du Barry sounding as though it won’t be it.