Do we like Johnny Depp?
Our score: 5 out of 10. Nothing harmful on LGBTQ+ people or the planet turned up, but a UK court ruling, a US jury and a settled assault suit make the good-person side a real split.
Depp's story has been in two halves for years. He was a studio fixture until Warner Bros. asked him to resign from the Fantastic Beasts franchise after a 2020 UK ruling. Since then he has made festival films and directed Modi, and he is now back with a major studio for the first time in years.
That UK ruling is the heart of the mess. In 2020 a High Court judge, ruling in a case Depp brought over a newspaper's wife beater headline, found the allegations substantially true, including 12 alleged assaults on Amber Heard. The Court of Appeal refused him permission to appeal in 2021, calling the hearing full and fair. His lawyer said there were clear reasons to question the decision.
The US went the other way. A Virginia jury in 2022 found for Depp on his defamation claim and awarded him $10 million, though it also gave Heard $2 million on one counterclaim. The two settled the appeals that December, with Heard to pay $1 million and Depp's lawyers saying he would give it to charity. Heard said at the time that the online vilification she faced showed how women are re-victimised.
There is a smaller stoush too. A location manager on City of Lies sued in 2018, alleging Depp punched him twice in the ribs. Depp's lawyers said he never touched him and denied the claims. The two settled in July 2022 before trial, on undisclosed terms. That is an allegation settled, not a finding, but it is one more entry on the ledger.
On the harm test, the record is thin rather than damning. We found no words of his against LGBTQ+ people, migrants, vaccines or the climate, and nothing in his recent projects that points at harmful company. Where women's groups object is his #MeToo remarks: he called himself a “crash test dummy for #MeToo” in a 2025 Sunday Times interview. Readers will take that differently depending on which court ruling they trust.
The news hook is the comeback. Paramount's Ebenezer, directed by Ti West, hits cinemas on 13 November, and he got a big reception at CinemaCon in April. Bruckheimer told Deadline in August that Disney is talking with him and working on a screenplay for Pirates 6, but no deal has been announced. Fans online are split on whether the Scrooge trailer is as fresh as the marketing claims.