Johnny Depp Tells Disney He'll Never Play Pirate for Them Again After They Dumped Him During the Amber Heard Allegations

Jesse Grant. Getty Images.

Hard as it is to believe, it's been a year plus a week since the most important, historic, consequential and life-changing trial in the history of jurisprudence ended in favor of the plaintiff:

Yes, the matter that made legal precedence by involving cross allegations of abuse - physical, emotional, sexual, alcohol, drug, and otherwise - celebrity egos run amok and marital beds being pooped in, ended in a finding for Johnny Depp over his (thankfully) ex-wife Amber Heard. With Depp being awarded $15 million in damages from the defendant for defaming him. 

Even by the standards of show business power couple trials, this one was dramatic. To quote one of the greatest lawyers ever to pass the bar:

Still, once Depp won a victory for himself personally, his reputation, and his career, it seemed like an automatic that he'd get back to doing what he does best. No, not make a sequel to The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. But to put on the Jack Sparrow bandana and guyliner and start drunkenly swinging from ropes again. After all, it's been a long time since he'd donned the pirate garb. Five years to be exact. Which is a long time for buckles to go unswashed. 

And since Disney is incapable of new ideas and fast running out of classic movies they can make lazy, unimaginative, shitty-looking live action remakes of in order to separate millennial parents from their money, it seemed like the most no-brainer of no-brainers that they'd sign Depp to star in Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Franchises Make No Money or whatever. 

Instead, we find out he's giving them a lesson in power dynamics in Hollywood. On who needs whom in this equation:

Source - Johnny Depp fans who are clamoring for him to once step into Captain Jack Sparrow's tattered boots and tricorn are set to face bitter disappointment because, DailyMail.com can reveal, the actor has absolutely no plans to ever work with Disney again. 

Despite furious speculation about the actor's potential return to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise - which reports suggested could earn him up to $20 million - Depp is, his pals say, done with Disney once and for all because he is still furious over the way the studio unceremoniously 'dropped him' when his ex-wife Amber Heard accused him of abuse. 

Last week, Disney studios President Sean Bailey made global headlines when he said that the studio was 'noncommittal at this point' about Depp's return. It was widely taken as a gambit to leave the door open for Depp, following his win in court in Virginia last year over domestic abuse allegations. …

Insiders say that Depp is still smarting after the way that they dumped him when the wife-beating accusations first surfaced. 

'They blind dropped him even though Amber had lied her a** off,' says a friend. …

The pal says he has decided that no matter how lucrative the offer, or how cameo the role, he will never agree to go back for this particular studio film - and that it is highly unlikely that he will be tempted to do any studio film again.

The lesson here is that there's money, and then there's Fuck You money. Depp has a little thing called Fuck You I Don't Need to Help You Sell Pirate Merchandise and Disney+ Subscriptions Money. About $15 million of coming from his lawsuit. And that's real capital in the entertainment business. The kind of juice that makes it so you not only don't have to work, but you get the greatest reward life can offer. And that is, the chance to hold a grudge. That is true power. 

The funny thing is that in this case, it's the giant media mega-conglomerate that needs the admittedly weird star, not the other way around. Disney is riding a losing streak of box office failures. Everything is down from revenue to stock price to Disney+ subscriptions to attendance at the theme parks. They have to board up the Star Wars theme hotel they spent a billion on just last year because it's awkward and ridiculously overpriced. A big percentage of Star Wars fans (of which I'm an OG) have lost all interest in the franchise thanks to the sequel trilogy (Luke is an asshole now who drinks space walrus titty milk. "Chewie was on another transport!") and most of the TV series (Obi Wan sneaks Li'l Leia out of a secure, heavily guarded base under his comically giant coat). And they're digging up Indiana Jones' corpse one last time just so they can desecrate one last time. This is a corporation in desperate need of a W. But Depp refuses to give it to them because they dumped him over the railing of the pirate ship like ballast at the first sign of trouble between him and his equally kookie wife. 

Look, Hollywood is the last place you expect to find loyalty. The absolute last place. Especially with every studio scrambling in the wake of #MeToo to figure out how to stay out of trouble under the new rules no one had written yet. But decisions have consequences. Depp is an eccentric crackpot. But he's an eccentric crackpot who made them billions. And now not even $20 million is enough to bring him back to make a few billion more. And they will always remember this as the day that Captain Jack Sparrow told them to go piss up a rope.