The Johnny Depp Comeback Hits Judgment Day with ‘Ebenezer’: How Paramount Is Carefully Reintroducing the Controversial Star

Hollywood studios turned away Johnny Depp eight years ago. With “Ebenezer,” Paramount Pictures is betting that audiences have not rejected him too. The “A Christmas Carol” adaptation, out November 13, marks a decisive moment for the studio, as it was one of the first films boarded by the company after its 2025 acquisition by Skydance. Depp got some positive social media attention Monday evening when he was filmed “wyling out” and “wreaking havoc” in the Christmas Market of New York’s Bryant Park — as Scrooge, of course. In his first major pre-release promotional stop for “Ebenezer,” Depp donned a fright wig and make-up to enact some staged bah-humbugging, which included popping balloons, knocking over a Christmas tree, and playfully antagonizing an on-site Santa Claus. The stunt was Depp’s second in-character appearance as Scrooge, coming three months after a similarly interactive appearance at San Diego Comic-Con that also generated mounds of social media content from passerby. Later on at the event, Scrooge appeared onstage during Collider’s Directors on Directing panel to debut the first “Ebenezer” trailer. The approach leans into how audiences know Depp, who became one of the industry’s biggest stars in the aughts with his quirked-up performances in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise and various Tim Burton joints. But several publicity veterans note that it’s also a strategy that helps the star skirt addressing himself: a typical component to the modern promotional gauntlet of podcast appearances and junketing. Paramount and representatives for Depp declined to comment for this story. Indeed, the last time Depp was promoting a blockbuster in character was at Warner Bros.’ San Diego Comic-Con panel in 2018, where he appeared as Gellert Grindelwald, the seductively authoritarian wizard within J.K. Rowling’s world of “Harry Potter,” to promote the second “Fantastic Beasts” prequel. Depp was mired in controversy at the time, as his ex-wife, Amber Heard, alleged that he had been “physically abusive” in court documents filed in their divorce case. Depp denied the claims. Making things more awkward — Heard appeared at the same studio presentation, popping up an hour later for a panel hyping “Aquaman.” Two years later, Depp departed from a third (and what ended up to be the final) “Fantastic Beasts” entry. On Instagram, the actor posted that he had been “asked to resign” by the studio. Depp had just lost a U.K. libel trial against The Sun, in which a judge ruled that an article reporting that the actor was a “wife beater” was found to be “substantially true.” But Depp later claimed victory in a U.S. defamation trial against Heard herself. Heard had written a Washington Post op-ed in which she described herself as a survivor of domestic abuse. Depp claimed the article damaged his reputation and career; both parties argued the other was the aggressor through the grueling six-week spectacle. An initial jury ruling sided with Depp on three separate claims of defamation, ordering Heard pay him $10.35 million in damages. Heard won on one of her three counterclaims of defamation, ordering Depp to pay her $2 million. A later appeal by Heard ended with a settlement in which she agreed to pay $1 million to Depp. The highly-gawked-at and internet-scrutinized trial reignited his fame and infamy, depending on your perspective. Once a big-screen titan, he was now ubiquitous on social media, particularly TikTok, emerging with an ardent online fanbase forged by a conviction that he was a man who had been rashly cast aside during the #MeToo movement’s prominence in the late 2010’s. With “Ebenezer,” Paramount has the unique assignment of capitalizing on that celebrity, without inviting relitigation of an ugly legal battle that would cloud the sunny promotion of a family feature. Hence, the in-character appearances, along with underlining Depp’s penchant for transformative turns (though no further ones are planned). A promotional video featuring snippets of cast interviews, including the likes of Ian McKellen, Daisy Ridley, and Tramell Tillman, praise the actor as giving “a performance the likes of which you’ve never seen before.” “A less clever route would be turning the release into a ‘comeback’ victory lap. The result could be an unnecessary and noisy polarization of views, reviving the very controversy the studio would prefer to move beyond,” says media lawyer and crisis manager Amber Melville-Brown, who heads the media and reputation team at the law firm Withers. “A campaign built around vindication invites an argument about who, precisely, has been vindicated and for what — starting the debate over again. A campaign built around the performance sparks a different conversation.” Meanwhile, Paramount has been careful to show “Ebenezer” to select audiences so far. The film was unveiled Sunday in New York City with a “special screening” at the Whitby Hotel’s 147-seat screening room — an intimate venue for the first unveiling of a studio feature. A handful of press outlets and more influencers were invited to a small carpet. One front-facing video posted by a guest featured her meeting Depp and calling the occasion “my sign from God that I chose the right path today.” A London premiere will take place at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on Monday. In another shrewd booking, Depp made a surprise onstage appearance during Aerosmith’s Hollywood Bowl concert on October 29. While other actors may tap in for a late-night spot or “Hot Ones” interview to mark the home stretch of film promotion, Depp instead let a guitar solo on “Train Kept A-Rollin'” do the talking. Down the line, the “Ebenezer” review embargo will lift November 12, mere hours before public screenings begin — almost always a sign that a studio has little confidence in finding good PR from the critic class. The film’s director, Ti West, has usually drawn positive reviews through his career, mostly known as an indie horror darling until this first studio feature. But most importantly for Paramount, “Ebenezer” doesn’t need to be a blockbuster to find success. The film’s production budget netted out to a rather modest $38 million, giving it a much easier pathway to theatrical profitability than Depp’s previous mega-budget tentpoles. Along with that comes hopes to leg out through the holiday season and a bank on grosses from overseas territories, where other older male movie stars like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise have better retained their ability to sell tickets. Rival studios are looking closely at whether audiences still see Depp as a big screen draw. Lionsgate is already in the Depp business for the revenge thriller “Day Drinker,” releasing in March. And at Disney’s D23 Expo in August, “Pirates of the Caribbean” producer Jerry Bruckheimer floated hopes to get the star on board for a sixth installment. That franchise has laid dormant for nearly a decade, despite numerous reports of development teams tinkering on a Depp-less take. In one of the more interesting quotes from the “Ebenezer” event in New York, Depp spoke with Entertainment Tonight and slid in a dig at the 2017 entry “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” saying he’d be open to a franchise return but noting that “the only involvement I really want to have, truly, is just to send them off on a better note.” But when Depp was first jettisoned from Hollywood’s A-list, major studios had begun to tire of his antics. There were reports of erratic on-set behavior, sky-high salary demands, and — in the true offender for studios — diminishing box office returns. The “Pirates” films still made money, but Depp headlined several costly bombs, including “Alice Through the Looking Glass” and “Mortdecai,” which had left companies less eager to write big checks, particularly given his public relations scandals. But Depp’s absence may have not curbed his following. A National Research Group study from earlier this year found that he was the seventh-most cited name by people, especially in Europe, when they wre asked to name five actors or actresses that would motivate them to see “a new movie in a cinema,” even though he’s been away from the big screen for nearly a decade. Over those years, a growing refrain in the business has been that some movie stars have kneecapped their ability to open films by signing on to streaming productions, curbing consumers’ association of them with theaters. In that context, Depp may prove to be a unicorn, having essentially sat out years of the industry chasing Netflix — even if it wasn’t his choice to.