10 years ago, Johnny Depp proved that his best days were behind him thanks to a huge box office bomb

(Welcome to Tales from the checkoutour column that looks at box office miracles, disasters and everything in between, and what we can learn from them.)

“I’ve only once staged something someone else wrote and it was a flawed adventure from the start, I’m just as guilty as anyone else.” These are the words of director David Kepp, speaking to UCLA in 2022 The misadventure in question was 2015’s Mordecai, a global comedy starring Johnny Depp as the lead at the time. It was a colossal failure, both critically and commercially, that Kepp doesn’t seem interested in defending.

Koepp is no stranger to big hits. As a screenwriter, he helped turn Jurassic Park into one of the biggest films of all timeand this is only the tip of the iceberg. How is the director? It’s a little more spotty, but the man knows his way to success. He previously directed the thriller Secret Window, which also starred Depp, and turned it into a nice little hit. As an actor, Depp rocketed out of the gate and quickly became a star for director Tim Burton. Then, in the early 2000s, he became a superstar thanks to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. But as the saying goes, the bigger they fall, the harder they fall—and this movie really marked the beginning of Depp’s big downfall.

This week on Tales from the Box Office, we look back at “Mordecai” in honor of its 10th anniversary. We’ll cover how it came to be, where Depp was at this point in his career, what happened when it hit theaters, what happened after it came out, and what lessons we can learn from it a decade later. Let’s dig in, shall we?

The film was inspired by Cyril Bonfiglioli’s 1972 novel Don’t Touch Me With That Thing. It was the first in a series of novels focusing on the aristocrat Charlie Mordecai. If it did, an obvious franchise would be born, not unlike how “Fletch” became a short-lived franchise with Chevy Chase in the 80s. The screenplay was written by Eric Aronson (“On the Line”). It’s probably telling that Aronson has had no credit to his name since then.

“Mordecai” as we know it focuses on a no-nonsense, con-artist art dealer Charlie Mordecai (Depp) who is battling some angry Russians, the British Mi5, his wife and an international terrorist all at the same time. He must travel the world, armed with his good looks and charm, to recover a stolen painting said to hold the key to finding a fortune in Nazi gold.

In 2013, Lionsgate announced an expanded partnership with OddLot Entertainment, which saw the companies co-finance several projects, including Draft Day and Ender’s Game, both of which fell short. It turned out to be quite a difficult partnership.

“We are excited to extend and expand our long-standing relationship with OddLot founder Gigi Pritzker and her team,” then-Lionsgate co-chairmen Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger said in September 2013 (via MovieWeb). “Our partnership on ‘Ender’s Game’ and ‘Draft Day’ has now expanded to include ‘Mordecai’ and we look forward to finding many more pictures to partner with in the future.”

More spoilers, but they weren’t partnered for many of the photos. Not to get ahead of myself, but OddLot Entertainment came out in 2015, the same year this movie hit theaters. Lionsgate tends to be lucky with mid-budget movies but, for whatever reason, the slate made with OddLot seemed to be poisoned. In the case of this film, it seemed like star power would save the day.

It should be noted that at the time Depp was an incredible star. In 2003 Pirates of the Caribbean gave Disney one of its biggest and most unexpected franchises. Today, that’s a whopping $4.5 billion. Much of this had to do with Depp’s Jack Sparrow. He also starred in massive hits like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland during the 2000s. It wasn’t exactly bulletproof, with misses like “Public Enemies” in the mix, but it was a pretty safe bet.

However, everything was starting to catch up with Depp. He starred in several disastrous flops, most notably Disney’s The Lone Ranger in 2013.. But everyone gets sad from time to time, and that movie had bigger problems. In the case of “Mordecai,” it was a major vehicle for the actor that rested largely on his shoulders. It was up to him to prove he could hit outside of the Pirates.

Koep and Depp were hardly the only big names involved. The stunning ensemble includes Gwyneth Paltrow (“Iron Man”), Ewan McGregor (“Star Wars”), Paul Bettany (“The Da Vinci Code”), Olivia Munn (“The Newsroom”) and Jeff Goldblum (“The Big Budapest”). Hotel”) is also on board. Depp’s girlfriend, Bethany, offered some insight on the actor in a January 2015 interview. HuffPost:

“He doesn’t give a f***, he really doesn’t. He has never read a review in his life, he loves making a movie, but he doesn’t watch movies. He doesn’t really care what a critic might think. He swims across the ocean and the whale doesn’t notice the tufted crayfish on him.

Even if Bethany didn’t mean it as such, it seems pretty insulting in light of the film’s failure, not to mention what happened later (we’ll get back to that). Anyway, this movie had that “too big to fail” thing that seems to flow through doomed businesses. Depp’s star power is about to take a major hit from which he may never recover.

January movies often have a certain mood. This isn’t usually considered a month for studios to release their A-list stuff. That narrative has changed a bit in recent years, but in Mordecai it had classic January movies, to their detriment. By this time, franchises had really taken over Hollywood, and selling audiences on a funny comedy was going to be difficult anyway. The marketing didn’t help, and the almost universal hatred from the critics certainly didn’t help. Essay for RogerEbert.comPiotr Sobczynski called it “an absolutely stunning waste of time, talent, energy and money.” It was a recipe for disaster.

Kepp’s ill-fated caper hit theaters on January 23, 2015 and was dead on arrival. Opening against The Boy Next Door and Alien Magic , the film barely managed to crack the top 10 that weekend, earning just $4.2 million. It didn’t help Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper was in the midst of a record-breaking runearning a staggering $64.6 million in its fifth weekend. It would go on to make $547.6 million worldwide.

Meanwhile, Mordecai fell off a cliff in its second weekend, dropping nearly 66% from just $1.4 million. It brought in a terrible $543 per screen average, and theater owners were fed up. It lost nearly 2,400 screens the following weekend, over 90% of its total, one of the biggest drops ever. As a result, the film grossed only $7.6 million domestically. It performed best overseas with $39.5 million for a total of $47.2 million. But in light of its $60 million budget, which doesn’t take marketing into account, it was an abject failure.

Through co-financing agreements and international presales, Lionsgate was able to limit its exposure. Regardless, someone – or a lot of people – lost money on this nonsense. It was just one of many notable box office bombs that hit theaters in 2015but it helped set the tone. Also, in a surprising twist, “Mordecai,” which was showing in R-rated theaters, has been changed to PG-13 for VOD release. This was clearly a desperate measure to try to recoup the losses.

This failure also served as a serious blow to Depp’s reputation. Moreover, a case was building that suggested his best days were behind him. Even before this film, Depp’s hot streak started to cool. He starred in several flops including Dark Shadows, The Rum Diary, Tusk and Transcendence, as well as The Lone Ranger. The misses were beginning to outweigh the hits.

Depp got one more Pirates movie under his belt in 2017’s Dead Men Tell No Tales before the wheel really fell off. Shortly thereafter, Depp’s highly publicized split with now-ex-wife Amber Heard completely destroyed his status as a hired hand in Hollywood. Depp even walked out of the Fantastic Beasts franchise as Grindewald amid this chaos. For good reason, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was a big step up financially from its predecessor, even without any controversy.

While Depp and Heard’s lawsuits are in the rearview mirror, the actor’s career hasn’t exactly recovered. Only came credits like the cartoon “Sherlock’s Gnomes” and rare indies like “Jeanne du Barry”. Nothing broke through. In many ways, this film seemed like the point of no return for this once powerful star.

To what extent Depp will ever achieve movie stardom again remains to be seen. There is a conversation about the actor returns as Jack Sparrow in another Pirates movie.. Does it happen or not? We will decide. Hollywood, if nothing else, is eager to repeat the success to an almost toxic degree. Studios will over-invest in such things in the hope that their former glory can be recaptured. Depp’s comeback is like steroids right now.

For Köpp, he wanted to never stage films not written by him. Many directors work with other writers, but each has their own creative process. To his credit, Köpp has only made one film since then, 2020’s You Should Have Left , which he wrote himself. This experience clearly left its mark on him.

As for Mordecai, sometimes things just don’t work out. Kepp is a great director. Lionsgate tried to be smart with the budget. It had a cast and a solid starting material. It’s a reminder that making a good movie is a minor miracle.

However, this is too much energy that I talked about earlier. In an era where box office success is more elusive than ever, studios are trying to load up on star power as an insurance policy. It can be good. Look at “Oppenheimer” for example. But star power alone can only take you so far. Just look at the colossal failure of 2022 that was Amsterdam. That thinking seemed to have poisoned the well here. Movie stars are only part of the equation. Without everything else, it doesn’t matter.