Johnny Depp "shocked and sad" about Dick Cook’s departure from Disney

“Shocked and very sad”–that’s how Johnny Depp described his reaction to the news that Dick Cook was no longer the chairman of Walt Disney Pictures. JD told the Los Angeles Times that Mr. Cook was “the utmost gentleman” and “the sweetest man on the planet,” and said that he agreed to appear in Pirates of the Caribbean after a conversation in Cook’s office. “He said, ‘We’re thinking about doing this Pirates of the Caribbean movie. [. . .] I said I was in. This was before there was a script or anything.”

According to Johnny, he made that commitment because he trusted Mr. Cook. “He’s instantly trustworthy. And you generally don’t meet people at the studios you trust. [. . .] He’s a rare beast.”

Only a week ago, Johnny Depp appeared on stage with Dick Cook at the D23 Expo in Anaheim, where the two announced Captain Jack Sparrow’s return in Summer 2011 in a new Pirates of the Caribbean film, On Stranger Tides. “I didn’t see this coming. There was no reason to see this coming,” JD told the LA Times. And the news of Mr. Cook’s departure may have taken the wind out of Captain Jack Sparrow’s sails.

Regarding On Stranger Tides, the Times’s Claudia Eller reports, “Depp said while he has a potential deal in place that will depend on how good the script is, his passion for the project at the moment has been severely dampened by the news that Cook will no longer be around.”

“There’s a fissure, a crack in my enthusiasm at the moment,” Johnny told the reporter. “It was all born in that office.”

The Zone thanks FANtasticJD for the Claudia Eller interview with Johnny Depp; you can read it in full on the LA Times website HERE, and you can read much more about about Dick Cook’s departure from Disney and the future of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise on the Zone’s News & Views forum. To see a larger version of the photo of Captain Jack Sparrow with Mr. Cook, CLICK HERE. –Part-Time Poet

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