Articles from June 2013



ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT shows video of Johnny’s fall from his LONE RANGER horse

Do you remember when Johnny Depp appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman in February, and described how he fell off his horse while filming The Lone Ranger? “All I saw in front of my eyes were these sort of very muscular horse legs and the striations of muscles moving. This kind of . . . [pause] . . . death machine,” Johnny told Dave. “And one word popped into my head: hooves.” On their June 13th show, Entertainment Tonight aired a brief behind-the-scenes clip from The Lone Ranger filming which showed Johnny’s fall from his horse . . . and the crew rushing toward him to be sure he was okay. Security chief Jerry Judge gets there in a hurry!

For those who missed the show, the clip is available on the Entertainment Tonight website. Check it out HERE at approximately the 2:00 mark.

The Zone thanks FANtasticJD and Ophelia for sharing the clip; you can read more about The Lone Ranger on the Zone’s News & Views forum.

INTO THE WOODS gets a release date–December 25, 2014

Rob Marshall’s film of Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tale-themed musical Into the Woods got a release date and a possible new cast member today! Into the Woods is now officially scheduled to debut on Christmas Day 2014, where the Disney release will compete directly with Sony’s musical Annie.

Tracey Ullman is in negotiations to join the cast; Into the Woods would be her first film since 2007. The Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Emmy-winning Ms. Ullman would play the mother of Jack the Giant-Killer. She would join an ensemble that already includes Meryl Streep as the Witch, Johnny Depp as the Wolf, James Corden and Emily Blunt as the Baker and the Baker’s Wife, and Chris Pine and Jake Gyllenhaal as brother-princes who woo Rapunzel and Cinderella. Merry Christmas!

The Zone thanks humiliatedgrape and Lou Lou 63 for breaking the news; you can read more about Into the Woods on the Zone’s News & Views forum.

Happy 50th Birthday to Johnny Depp!

Today is Johnny Depp’s 50th birthday, and on behalf of the worldwide community, we would like to send our heartfelt best wishes to Johnny. We hope he enjoys a wonderful birthday celebration with his loved ones, and that the year to come, with the filming of Wally Pfister’s Transcendence and Rob Marshall’s Into the Woods, and the worldwide debut of Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger, brings him great joy and creative fulfillment. We are looking forward to more live musical performances from Johnny, too! Above all, we would like to thank Johnny for letting us take this journey with him, and for being a constant source of inspiration, entertainment, and delight, both onscreen and off.

A pleasant trip down Memory Lane is available at The Hollywood Reporter, which has a retrospective of Johnny’s career in photos HERE. Many thanks to Sleepy for sharing the gallery.

May the happiness Johnny Depp has given to all of us be returned to him in abundance. Zoners from all over the world are sharing their birthday greetings on our Pit General Discussion forum, and are making donations to our Birthday Project in support of Project Pueblo’s work for the Navajo Nation to celebrate this special day. Happy Birthday, Johnny!

THE LONE RANGER on cover of Summer 2013 TOTAL FILM!

The Summer 2013 issue of the UK’s Total Film features The Lone Ranger‘s Johnny Depp (as Tonto) and Armie Hammer (as the Ranger) on the cover, and includes an entertaining four-page feature article by Holly Grigg-Spall entitled “Return of the Native.” The journalist spoke to Johnny, Armie, and director Gore Verbinski about their approach to the Western epic. “No one had heard the Lone Ranger’s story from Tonto’s perspective,” Verbinski explained. “This film, it could be called Tonto and the Masked Man.” That’s an intriguing alternate title, since it makes Tonto and the Ranger equal partners.

“We kept all the archetypes — the white hat, the silver bullet, the white horse — but we created them through the thread of Tonto. This is an origin story,” Verbinski said, “and it was Tonto that created the Lone Ranger. That’s what made the project interesting to me.”

The Zone thank Lu for sharing the Total Film article; you can read more on the Zone’s News & Views forum. A larger version of the Total Film Summer 2013 cover is available HERE.

Armie Hammer talks about bonding with Johnny Depp during THE LONE RANGER filming

In an interview with the Sunday Herald Magazine published on June 2nd, Armie Hammer responded to a journalist’s questions about what it was like to work with Johnny Depp on the often arduous shoot of their forthcoming Western, The Lone Ranger. Here’s what Armie had to say about Johnny:

Q: The Lone Ranger’s companion, Tonto, is played by Johnny Depp. How did you and Johnny bond off-screen?

ARMIE HAMMER: We probably bonded over music and guitars more than anything else. We both love guitars. He’s a fantastic guitarist and has this amazing taste in music. So we just hung out and went to dinner. It was fun. We jammed together a couple of times.

Q: What were the best and worst things about working with Johnny?

ARMIE HAMMER: Best thing is probably how good he is at his job, how much everybody respects him and how, equally, he brings that respect back. Worst part is seeing that the guy can’t lead a normal life, no matter how hard he tries. He can’t go to a restaurant and have a meal … because as soon as he walks in, suddenly it’s just mayhem.

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the interview; you can read more about The Lone Ranger on the Zone’s News & Views forum and the Pit General Discussion forum.

The Zone’s 2013 Birthday Project has now raised $6,000 for Project Pueblo! Won’t you join us?

One of the Zone’s most cherished traditions is our annual birthday gift for Johnny, called the Birthday Project. Each year we choose a charity which is connected to Johnny’s philanthropic interests, pool our modest contributions, and make a Zone donation to a worthy cause in his honor, as a way of celebrating and thanking Johnny for all the joy he has given us over the year. For this year’s project, we are partnering once again with Project Pueblo to bring water systems to Navajo families, and we have now raised more than $6,000!

Photos of Navajo families who received “Johnny Depp water systems” installed by Project Pueblo volunteers after last year’s Birthday Project are available HERE. Won’t you help us bring this joy to more families?

If you’re not familiar with Project Pueblo, please visit the Zone’s Birthday Project forum HERE for more information.

To donate by Paypal, please use this yellow “Donate” button to link to our 2013 Birthday Project Paypal account:





If you prefer to donate by check, CLICK HERE to visit the Johnny Depp Zone’s Birthday Project forum for the mailing address.

We will be accepting donations through Johnny’s birthday, June 9, 2013. Please join us in saying “Thank you” and “Happy Birthday” to Johnny Depp!

New behind-the-scenes footage from THE LONE RANGER–see the video here!

To whet our appetite for the upcoming release of The Lone Ranger — less than a month away now for North American Zoners — Disney has released a new featurette which shows Armie Hammer, the Lone Ranger himself, performing a scary stunt that involves standing on the top of a towering platform in the middle of the Utah desert, with only a harness keeping him from plummeting to the bottom of a canyon. And no, this wasn’t filmed in a nice safe studio surrounded by green screen, with the dizzying heights and fabulous terrain to be computer-generated. No, Armie did this live and in person. Watch the video here:

The Lone Ranger, which stars Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale, Ruth Wilson, and Helena Bonham Carter, opens in theaters July 3rd. The Zone thanks humiliatedgrape and Theresa for sharing the video; you can read more about the film on the Zone’s News & Views forum.

THE MUPPETS’ James Bobin in talks to direct ALICE IN WONDERLAND 2 for Disney

James Bobin, who showed a charming and inventive touch directing Disney’s 2011 hit The Muppets, is in early talks to take the helm of Alice in Wonderland 2 for Disney and producer Joe Roth, according to The Wrap. The 2010 version of Alice in Wonderland, directed by Tim Burton and starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, so Bobin has big shoes to fill. Linda Woolverton, who wrote the 2010 Alice in Wonderland, has been working on a script for the second, and it is expected that Johnny would return to play the Mad Hatter, although that has not been officially announced.

The Zone thanks FANtasticJD for sharing the news; you can read more about Alice in Wonderland 2 on the Zone’s Porch General Discussion forum. The Wrap article is available HERE.