JohnnyDepp-Zone.com

Agent Tracey Jacobs was selected by VARIETY, the Hollywood trade paper, as a “Woman of Impact,” one of the most influential females in an industry where powerful women are still a rarity. Ms. Jacobs has represented Johnny Depp since his early days in Hollywood; in fact, it was Tracey who prevailed upon Johnny to meet Tim Burton and discuss playing EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. Johnny has often spoken of Tracey’s loyalty to him despite career choices that could drive an ordinary agent round the bend–for example, turning down blockbusters like SPEED while electing to make the little-seen (but thoroughly brilliant) DEAD MAN. “Tracey’s taken a lot of heat over the years,” Johnny told TIME’s Josh Tyrangiel last year. “She has bosses and higher-ups, and every time I take on another strange project, they’re going, ‘[…]When does he do a movie where he kisses the girl? When does he get to pull a gun out and shoot somebody? […] When is he finally going to do a blockbuster?'”

Ironically, Tyrangiel added, when Johnny Depp’s blockbuster opportunity came around, “his long-suffering agent didn’t want him to take the part” of Captain Jack Sparrow. “He was pitched the movie without a script,” Tracey told Tyrangiel. “They basically said, ‘We’re going to make a movie out of this theme-park ride. Want to do it?’ And he said, ‘Great! I’m in. I believe in the idea.’ I just thought, What idea, you lunatic?”

Today Johnny celebrated Tracey’s being named a “Woman of Impact” by publishing the following letter in tribute to her. The letter appeared as a a full-page ad in today’s VARIETY, July 29, 2005:

Darling Tracey,

Johnny

The Zone thanks Micdus for posting the text of the letter, Jacks_Effects for the TIME magazine story, and emma for posting the VARIETY article about Tracey Jacobs on the News & Views forum. We congratulate Tracey Jacobs and wish her all possible success and happiness in the coming years.

Tim Burton’s CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket, opened in wide release in the UK today. The film has already earned $131.7 million in two weeks of release in the U.S. and Canada. Reviews were generally very good to outstanding. “[A] movie worth catching, mostly thanks to Depp who lights up the screen as the deliciously-dotty confectioner,” wrote THE MIRROR. “Springing from the twisted imagination of director Tim Burton, the result is as dark and sweet as the confectionery in question and one of those rare movies that’ll appeal to kids and adults alike.”

TIME OUT pronounces CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY “a charming children’s film that embraces imaginative production design and a wonderful creepy performance from Johnny Depp as the reclusive confectioner, Willy Wonka. It’s fitting that Burton, who rejects CGI in favour of real sets, should be at the helm of a story that was conceived by Roald Dahl in 1964 partly to lament the onset of modernity. [. . .]” As for Johnny Depp’s performance, TIME OUT writes, “Depp is the film’s piece de resistance. He carves a character defined by angular physical presence and alien diction. His Wonka is a strange hybrid: the costume of Michael Jackson; the lingo of Austin Powers; the hairstyle of Olivier’s Richard III; the top hat of a undertaker. It’s a sweet cocktail.”

“Cinema would be a much sweeter place if only a fraction of summer movies teased an audience as brilliantly as CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY,” writes James Christopher in the UK TIMES. “There isn’t a single conventional frame in Tim Burton’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic bedtime story, yet the morals about spoilt children are as familiar as yon hills. […] But it is Depp’s marvellous Wonka who powers the film,” Christopher adds, calling the movie “pure shameless magic.”

The Zone thanks emma, Reemi, and Gilbert’s Girl for posting the reviews of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY on the News & Views forum.