Articles from July 2009



BREAKING NEWS–Rob Marshall in talks to direct PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4, says Variety

No director has been at the helm of Disney’s flagship Pirates of the Caribbean franchise since Gore Verbinski waved goodbye to pursue other projects last April. Now Rob Marshall, director of the Oscar-winning Chicago, is in talks with Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer to come on board to direct the fourth Pirates movie, according to Michael Fleming of Variety. If Marshall works out a deal, that “puts the film on track for a 2010 production start, with Johnny Depp back as Captain Jack Sparrow,” says Variety.

Although Marshall’s involvement with Pirates 4 has not been officially confirmed, sources told Fleming that “things look good enough that the studio has begun casting new characters that will appear in the picture.” We look forward to hearing more about these “new characters,” and also about which familiar faces will be returning with Captain Jack.

In addition to the Oscar-winning Chicago, Rob Marshall has directed Memoirs of a Geisha and is finishing work on the musical Nine, now in post-production and due for release on November 25th. Nine stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, and Sophia Loren–that’s quite an ensemble!

You can read more about Marshall and Pirates 4 on the Zone’s News & Views forum. To read the Variety article, CLICK HERE, and for a witty commentary from Empire Online, CLICK HERE. –Part-Time Poet

TV ALERT–THE LATE SHOW with David Letterman repeats Johnny's visit on Wednesday, August 5th

In case you missed it the first time, or you’re in the throes of Public Enemies promotion-withdrawal and need to see Johnny Depp on television again, CBS’s The Late Show with David Letterman will re-air their June 25th episode, which featured Johnny as a guest, next Wednesday, August 5th. Dave and Johnny discuss why Johnny does not watch his own movies (which Letterman finds hard to believe), how quickly their children are growing up, Johnny’s life in France, his island, and Johnny’s favorite movie actors (“Bogart, first and foremost,”), as well as Public Enemies and the life of John Dillinger. It’s a charming interview, well worth a second viewing. The Zone thanks Zenda for sharing the news. –Part-Time Poet

"I don't want to do the dark things anymore"–an interview with Johnny Depp

As Public Enemies is released around the world, new interviews with Johnny Depp are popping up in foreign media–lovely surprises to entertain us while we’re waiting for word about Johnny’s next project. The German site 20Minuten is showing some video clips (in English) of an interview their reporter conducted with Johnny at the Public Enemies press junket in Chicago in June. Here is a sample of that interview:

Q: When you look back at all the movies you’ve done . . . if you close your eyes and see that colorful array of characters, from their costumes to their diversity, does it bring you joy to know that you’ve had that eclectic career? And that you’ve achieved that?

Johnny Depp: I’ve been so lucky. I’ve been so lucky to have been able . . . I mean, from Cry-Baby to Edward Scissorhands to–all the way down the road, you know . . . it’s been a real joyful ride, and an honor to have inhabited these beings.

Q: Is there a genre that you prefer doing? That you’ve realized you have more fun playing? A type of film?

Johnny Depp:
I’ve decided . . . you know, at a certain point I thought, you know what? That I don’t want to do anything that I am not going to be able to laugh, or make someone laugh, you know . . . . I can’t and I don’t want to do the dark things anymore. I don’t want to just do heavy, sort of [searching for the right word] gravitas anymore. I prefer just being able to giggle. And make someone else giggle.

Q: Like your children?

Johnny Depp:
Yeah.

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the interview and Christopher for posting downloads on our Video Clips forum. Thanks also to AnaMaria for the screencap of Johnny; to see a larger version, CLICK HERE. –Part-Time Poet

"It's like a puzzle"–Tim Burton talks about filming ALICE IN WONDERLAND

While he was in San Diego for Comic Con, director Tim Burton spoke with Gina McIntyre, a contributor to the LA Times Hero Complex blog, about the process of filming Alice in Wonderland. Here’s a bit of that conversation:

Gina McIntyre: How challenging has it been for you on Alice in Wonderland since you’re marrying several technologies to give the film its unique look? But also, how liberating has it been to utilize these new tools?

Tim Burton: I don’t feel liberated yet, no, only because it’s a very strange process and I like what I like. That’s why I like stop-motion. On a live-action, you’ve got actors, you’ve got sets and that’s what I like. This is almost the opposite of that. You’ve got a lot of pieces and not until very late in the game do you see a finished shot. I think I’ve yet to see a finished shot. It’s quite a scary, daunting process. It’s exciting but it’s the opposite of what I’m used to. You see a piece of a shot and it’s like a puzzle. You’re trying to hope and make sure it gets to the right place but you’re only seeing one piece at a time.

Gina McIntyre: Did the process change how you worked with the actors?

Tim Burton: No. Because it’s such a long big process, the key with that is to try to keep that as energetic, as quick and moving as possible, because otherwise you just get bogged down in technology. We just didn’t worry about the technology to begin with and just started to shoot, so the actors could keep their energy and their focus. With these kinds of things you’re acting against an animated character or something that’s not there. [. . .]

This is the first time I’ve dealt with a lot of green screen and it drives you nuts. After a while you start to get kind of jittery and crazy. It’s a weird phenomenon. [. . .] The thing is, you can’t really deal with Method actors in that scenario. They’re in trouble. [. . . Y]ou’re going to be working in a void and you’re going to be dealing with people who aren’t there [. . .].

Gina McIntyre: How long is the post-production process, one year?

Tim Burton: Well, it comes out in March, so that’s when it will end. It will go all the way up to that. [. . .] I wish there were more shots done than where we are at this moment. It’s been daunting. If you saw how much was missing, you’d be nervous, too. [laughs]

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the McIntyre interview; you can read it on the “All Things Alice” thread on the News & Views forum, or CLICK HERE. –Part-Time Poet

"It's always exciting"–Tim Burton talks about working with Johnny Depp on ALICE IN WONDERLAND

“Tim Burton’s 3D promotional trailer for Walt Disney Pictures’ Alice in Wonderland has been the talk of Comic-Con,” says Reuters, “thanks in part to the surprise cameo appearance of Johnny Depp at a panel on Thursday.” Reuters interviewed Tim Burton about his work on Alice and his long-time collaboration with Johnny Depp. Here’s a bit of that exchange:

Q: Can you explain your vision for Alice in Wonderland?

Tim Burton: No, because I still have a lot to do. (laughs)

Q: What did you take from Lewis Carroll’s source material?

Tim Burton: It’s based on all of Lewis Carroll’s material, including the “Jabberwocky Poem.” Past Alice films were always just a girl wandering around passively with a lot of weird characters. We tried to weave it into a story that has emotion to it and makes sense.

Q: What does Johnny Depp bring to the Mad Hatter?

Tim Burton: He likes dressing up. I think with the Alice in Wonderland characters, they’ve often been portrayed as just crazy without much subtext, and I think he tried to bring something, an underlying human quality to the craziness. He tried to understand it a bit more . [. . .] We try to give each character their own particular craziness. And he’s good at sort of exploring that, I guess because he’s crazy. I don’t know.

Q: What is your relationship like with Depp?

Tim Burton: We seem to get along well and I’ve worked with him many times. It’s always exciting to see what he brings to something. And it’s fun to work with him because it’s like it’s always something different and new and it’s just fun to see. That always is exciting to me.

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the story. You can read the Reuters interview on the News & Views forum in the “All Things Alice” thread, or CLICK HERE. –Part-Time Poet

"It’s always exciting"–Tim Burton talks about working with Johnny Depp on ALICE IN WONDERLAND

“Tim Burton’s 3D promotional trailer for Walt Disney Pictures’ Alice in Wonderland has been the talk of Comic-Con,” says Reuters, “thanks in part to the surprise cameo appearance of Johnny Depp at a panel on Thursday.” Reuters interviewed Tim Burton about his work on Alice and his long-time collaboration with Johnny Depp. Here’s a bit of that exchange:

Q: Can you explain your vision for Alice in Wonderland?

Tim Burton: No, because I still have a lot to do. (laughs)

Q: What did you take from Lewis Carroll’s source material?

Tim Burton: It’s based on all of Lewis Carroll’s material, including the “Jabberwocky Poem.” Past Alice films were always just a girl wandering around passively with a lot of weird characters. We tried to weave it into a story that has emotion to it and makes sense.

Q: What does Johnny Depp bring to the Mad Hatter?

Tim Burton: He likes dressing up. I think with the Alice in Wonderland characters, they’ve often been portrayed as just crazy without much subtext, and I think he tried to bring something, an underlying human quality to the craziness. He tried to understand it a bit more . [. . .] We try to give each character their own particular craziness. And he’s good at sort of exploring that, I guess because he’s crazy. I don’t know.

Q: What is your relationship like with Depp?

Tim Burton: We seem to get along well and I’ve worked with him many times. It’s always exciting to see what he brings to something. And it’s fun to work with him because it’s like it’s always something different and new and it’s just fun to see. That always is exciting to me.

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the story. You can read the Reuters interview on the News & Views forum in the “All Things Alice” thread, or CLICK HERE. –Part-Time Poet

Latest from Disney–PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4 to start shooting next spring

Some Pirates news from Comic Con . . . ComingSoon.net’s Edward Douglas managed to get a brief interview with Disney’s Head of Production Oren Aviv on Thursday, and asked about the status of Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Mr. Aviv confirmed what producer Jerry Bruckheimer told the press a few weeks ago–that Pirates 4 is a high priority for Disney. “[T]hey have plans to be rolling film on the movie as early as next year,” Douglas reports.

“We’re going to shoot Pirates 4 in April and May of next year,” Aviv told ComincSoon.net. “We are going to release it hopefully in 2011 is the plan.” Unlike Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, which were written and shot simultaneously, Pirates 4 will be a stand-alone effort–although with fond memories of the billions of dollars the first 3 movies earned, Aviv admitted to a hope that Pirates 4 could “be the first of another trilogy.” So look for a character-driven sea tale to start filming next spring, if all goes well . . . .

“It’s important to get the story right and it’s important to me to scale it down, because we can’t get bigger,” Aviv said. “The [Pirates] movies have subsequently gotten bigger and bigger and very complicated, and they were satisfying on so many levels obviously, but I want to kind of reboot the whole thing and bring it down to its core, its essence, just characters.”

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the news; you can read more on the News & Views forum. To read the ComingSoon.net article, CLICK HERE. –Part-Time Poet

Re-imagining Alice in Wonderland: Tim Burton answers questions at Comic Con

Director Tim Burton took the stage at Comic Con yesterday to talk about his new approach to Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories and his experience shooting Alice in Wonderland in 3D. “I haven’t been here since I was a student, when it was a few people and a slide show,” Burton joked; now Hall H was packed to the rafters and the Alice trailer was being shown in 3D. The new film follows an older Alice as she returns to Wonderland, but it is based on elements in the Lewis Carroll works. Burton wanted to “try and make Alice feel more like a story as opposed to a series of events” and to try to give the viewer “an emotional connection” to Alice, rather than just one surprising visual after another.

“Seeing other movie versions of it, I never felt an emotional connection to it,” Burton said. “It was always a girl wandering around from one crazy character to another, and I never really felt any real emotional connection. So it’s an attempt to really try to give [Alice in Wonderland] some framework of emotional grounding that has never been in any version before. So that’s the challenge to me.”

Burton called Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter “an iconic character” and noted that JD sought to find that “emotional grounding” for the Mad Hatter–“something that you feel, as opposed to just being mad,” Burton said. “In a lot of versions it’s a very one-note kind of character. [. . . H]is goal was to try and bring out a human side to the strangeness of the character. Any time I work with him, that’s something he tries to do, so that’s no exception.”

Burton also said that he felt 3D was the right choice for Alice in Wonderland because of the nature of the story: “with the Alice material, the growing and shrinking and the weird kind of spaces and places you’re in, it just kind of helps with the experience,” he explained. “I’m personally not out to make it a gimmick. I think it puts you in this world more.”

The Zone thanks Emma for several news articles on Tim Burton’s appearance at Comic Con; you can read them on the “All Things Alice” thread on the Zone’s News & Views forum. To see a larger version of the photo of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp sharing a microphone on the Comic Con stage, CLICK HERE. –Part-Time Poet

Here it is: the teaser trailer for Tim Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND!

The first trailer for Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland was shown–twice–to the audience at Comic Con today, and then released on Facebook to the Disloyal Subjects of the Mad Hatter. Come watch Alice (Mia Wasikowska) as she falls down the rabbit hole and finds herself in Wonderland:

We don’t hear Alice speak in the trailer, but we do hear the Mad Hatter–and it’s another new voice from the always-surprising Johnny Depp: “There is a place like no place on Earth. Some say, to survive it, you need to be mad as a hatter–which, luckily, I am.”

The Zone thanks Serendipity, Christie, and Theresa for sharing the trailer. Thanks also to Emma for many news articles discussing the trailer; you can read more on the Zone’s News & Views forum. –Part-Time Poet

BREAKING NEWS–Johnny Depp makes an appearance at Comic Con with Tim Burton! Surprise!

Johnny Depp thrilled the Comic Con patrons in Hall H today by making a quick appearance on stage to support his friend and director Tim Burton. Tim was there to introduce the trailer for Alice in Wonderland, in which Johnny plays the Mad Hatter. According to E! Online, when Tim reached the end of his Q&A segment, he “asked the crowd if they would like to meet the ‘imaginary friend’ that follows him around.” To the delight of the crowd, Johnny appeared on stage and waved. He was wearing a white striped shirt open at the neck and a Dillinger-style pinstriped vest. To see a larger version of our picture of JD at Comic Con, CLICK HERE.

Johnny’s greeting to Comic Con was short and sweet. “After several moments of cheering,” E! Online reports, Johnny leaned into the microphone and said, “Hey. Happy to be here.” Five words and a big smile–and then he was gone.

CinemaBlend offered this succinct summary of Johnny’s visit to Hall H: “Johnny Depp showed up for approximately a minute, wearing a vest and looking insanely hot. The Twilight moms completely lost it. I’m pretty sure everyone in the room fell in love immediately.” Sounds about right . . . .

The Zone thanks Christie for breaking the news and ~SB, Theresa, FANtasticJD and AnaMaria for additional reporting. You can read all about Johnny’s visit to Comic Con on the Zone’s News & Views forum. And the Alice in Wonderland trailer should be available soon! –Part-Time Poet

The Hollywood Reporter wonders "What's next?" for Johnny Depp?

Zoners aren’t the only ones wondering what Johnny Depp’s next film project will be: The Hollywood Reporter has a feature by Steven Zeitchik and Borys Kit called “Johnny Depp’s Next Is Up in the Air: Actor has several potential projects but no go pictures.” The reporters survey the status of Pirates 4, The Lone Ranger, and Dark Shadows, all delayed to 2010 at the earliest: the Disney pictures lack finished scripts and directors, while Warner Bros. Dark Shadows, which was to shoot this autumn, has been delayed so director Tim Burton can finish work on his 3D Alice in Wonderland, due in theaters on March 5, 2010.

As a result, “Depp is attached to a number of high-profile development properties but is facing a landscape devoid of go pictures,” says The Hollywood Reporter. “Instead, there are a dizzying number of possibilities and schedule permutations, none of which seems likely to result in a produced movie for him anytime soon.” Unless, of course, something comes in from left field and gets shot immediately, which happened with both Public Enemies and Sweeney Todd.

The Hollywood Reporter contributes to the slate of possible Depp projects by mentioning another role we haven’t heard of before: “Producers have been interested in Depp, whose deal is at Warner Bros., for the title role in the studio’s The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Kevin Lima’s remake that would continue a whimsical if slightly less drama-intensive streak for the actor. He has not signed on, however, and in any event the pic would not go into production until next year.” When, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Johnny Depp is likely to be very busy.

To read the article in The Hollywood Reporter, CLICK HERE. You can read a lively discussion of this story on the Zone’s News & Views forum. –Part-Time Poet

DARK SHADOWS will shoot next year, Tim Burton tells MTV News

Confirming comments made by Johnny Depp during the Public Enemies junket, Tim Burton told Eric Ditzian of MTV Movies Blog that he will begin work on Dark Shadows just as soon as his current project, Disney’s 3D Alice in Wonderland, is complete. “That’s something that [Johnny and I] both love and are excited about,” Burton told MTV. “When I’m done with this [Alice] I’ll definitely focus on that.” Dark Shadows will be based on the 60s TV show “that incorporated elements of gothic romance, science fiction and supernatural phenomena like ghosts, zombies and vampires.” JD will play vampire Barnabas Collins, the iconic role created by Jonathan Frid.

Dark Shadows is famous for its unique tone that could effortlessly juxtapose genuine horror and suspense with campy melodrama. “Part of the energy of it was the tone and weirdness of it,” Burton said. “That’s our challenge, to try to capture that vibe.”

And will he emphasize the suspense, the horror . . . or the humor? “It’s always a fine line,” Burton told MTV. “That remains to be seen. That’s a question and a challenge we talk about a lot. I haven’t arrived at the answer,” he said frankly. “That’s definitely a main issue, the tone and the vibe of it because as we all know melodrama can cross over [into camp]. It’s one of the more interesting things about it.”

The Zone thanks FANtasticJD for the MTV Movie Blog interview with Tim Burton. You can read more about Dark Shadows on the Zone’s News & Views forum; to read the MTV article, CLICK HERE.–Part-Time Poet

"I am a gun-slinging assassin"–Bill Nighy talks about his role in RANGO

Bill Nighy took a little time from promoting G-Force to tell MTV about his role in Gore Verbinski’s Rango, which stars Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Ned Beatty and Harry Dean Stanton. Rango is “a CG animation/motion-capture hybrid movie about household pets on a dangerous cowboy adventure,” reports MTV’s Eric Ditzian; the actors completed their portion of the work earlier this year. Nighy plays the villain “who does battle” with Johnny Depp’s Rango, who is an animated lizard.

“I play the bad guy,” Nighy declared. “I play a very, very bad guy. I’m a rattlesnake and I am a gun-slinging assassin. I literally have a Gatling gun–I have a machine gun in my tail–so I can just spray the whole town. I can kill everybody whenever I wish. I’m brought in by the corrupt sheriff to sort things out. It’s quite cool.”

John Logan wrote the Rango script, and MTV reports that the drawings for the animation were done by Verbinski’s collaborator from the Pirates of the Caribbean films. “Crash, the artist who did all the drawings for Pirates, he’s done the creatures,” Nighy said. “He’s brilliant.”

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the news; you can read more on the Porch forum. Rango is scheduled to be released in 2011.–Part-Time Poet

Emir Kusturica casts Johnny Depp as Pancho Villa in his upcoming film

Acclaimed Serbian director Emir Kusturica has cast Johnny Depp in the role of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa in his film, Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman with Six Fingers; the female lead will be Salma Hayek. Kusturica talked about his film in an exclusive interview with Simonida Milojkovic of Blic Online. The director had just returned from a visit to the Depp home in France, where he was a guest of Johnny and Vanessa Paradis. “Johnny and I have been friends for a long time. We were sitting in his house, talking for a long time, refreshing our memories,” Kusturica said. “When I showed him the script written by Gordan Mihic, Johnny said he wanted the role without even reading it.”

Emir Kusturica previously directed Johnny Depp in the award-winning Arizona Dream, early in JD’s career. When Milojkovic asked what it would cost to hire JD to play Pancho Villa, Kusturica replied, “He is the king of Hollywood. He is currently the most expensive actor. The question ‘how much does it cost’ is such a typical question among Serbian people. He acts for 20 million dollars, but he also acts for one million,” the director explained. “He built his career working with directors he likes, having faith in film as art. Pirates of the Caribbean came later.”

Filming of Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman with Six Fingers was originally planned for this autumn, but now will be pushed back to late 2010 or 2011 because of JD’s other film commitments. The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the article; you can read more on the News & Views forum. –Part-Time Poet

Casting rumor–Johnny Depp to play Dean Martin in biopic?

A few weeks ago, we heard a rumor that Universal wanted Johnny Depp cast as Frank Sinatra in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming biopic about Sinatra’s life. Now Dean Martin’s daughter, Deana, has gone on record saying that Johnny Depp is her first choice to play her father in a movie she’s planning to produce about her dad’s life. During a recent interview with a Boston radio station, Deana “acknowledged that a film is in the works.” According to Examiner.com, Ms. Martin said that the film “will be directed by Joe Mantegna and written by comedian and actress Bonnie Hunt.” And why would Deana Martin like to see JD play the role? “[Depp] is a tremendous actor, he has that charm, that swagger, and the resemblance of my father is there. I’m sure he would do the role justice!”

Interesting idea; you can read a discussion of the Dean Martin rumor on the Zone’s News & Views forum. –Part-Time Poet

BREAKING NEWS–Tim Burton visits Comic-Con for Disney's first-ever 3D panel on July 23rd!

Exciting news–a Disney press release confirms that directors Tim Burton (Alice in Wonderland) and Robert Zemeckis (A Christmas Carol) will join Tron producers Sean Bailey and Steve Lisberger on Thursday, July 23rd at 11 a.m. “for an unprecedented presentation featuring behind-the-scenes filmmaker insights about [their] highly anticipated 3D adventures.” The 90-minute panel will include “Q&A opportunities with each of the filmmakers,” says Disney, along with “never-before-seen concept art, trailers, actual 3D film footage and other Comic-Con-only footage debuts.” According to Disney, their July 23rd panel will mark “the first time ever that 3D footage will be shown at Comic-Con.”

The Zone thanks Emma for breaking the news; you can read more on the Alice in Wonderland thread on the News & Views forum. We’re hoping that Tim Burton will bring a trailer for Alice in Wonderland to Comic-Con!–Part-Time Poet

Happy 6th Anniversary to Captain Jack Sparrow and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL!

Believe it or not, it was exactly six years ago today that Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl opened in movie theaters across North America, and the public got its first glimpse of Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow. Critics were predisposed to sneer at a movie inspired by a theme-park ride–was there even one review that failed to highlight that fact, or to mention that the pirate movie was a dead genre?–but ecstatic word-of-mouth soon made the pundits and past history irrelevant. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl eventually claimed box-office booty of $654 million worldwide, launched a pair of fantastically successful sequels (with a fourth now promised from Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer), and lodged its colorful characters permanently in the popular imagination. Now Captain Jack Sparrow’s boast is true around the world: everyone has heard of him.

Johnny Depp’s performance earned him an Oscar nomination and a SAG Award as Best Actor. “His performance is original in its every atom,” wrote Roger Ebert in his review. “There has never been a pirate, or for that matter a human being, like this in any other movie.” Critic Emmanuel Levy has called Captain Jack Sparrow “the only iconic screen character to have yet emerged in the new millenium.”

The Zone congratulates all of the dedicated artists who worked on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl; you have given us more hours of pleasure and pure entertainment than we could possibly count. Many thanks to Jerry Bruckheimer, Gore Verbinski, Terry Rossio & Ted Elliott, and those executives at Disney who decided not to fire Johnny Depp. And thanks, above all, to Johnny Depp himself . . . the best pirate we’ve ever seen. –Part-Time Poet

We're celebrating! It's the Zone's 5th birthday at this site!

Yes, this venture of Sleepy’s and mine has been underway for five full years now, continuing the Johnny Depp Zone tradition that has been operating in one form or another for more than 11 years. We officially opened the “new” Zone on July 9, 2004, the first anniversary of the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. When we began the website, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had just started shooting at Pinewood, Corpse Bride had just been announced, there were rumors Finding Neverland would finally be released in the fall, and Johnny’s production company, Infinitum Nihil, had just been formed. The Libertine was in post-production and headed for a work-in-progress showing at the Toronto Film Festival.

How time flies! Not only have we seen Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride and The Libertine make their way into theaters, but we’ve watched every step of the production of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End; we’ve heard Johnny sing his way to a Golden Globe win and an Oscar nomination in Sweeney Todd; we’ve eagerly watched the filming of Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Gore Verbinski’s Rango, and Bruce Robinson’s The Rum Diary. Now we look foward to Dark Shadows, Pirates 4, Rex Mundi and The Lone Ranger . . . just to mention a few of the more prominent projects on Johnny Depp’s dance card.

As we celebrate and reminisce on the Porch today, I’d like to thank Sleepy and the Zone staff–Theresa, Joni, Shadow, AnaMaria, Liz, and DeppintheHeartofTexas–for their dedication and hard work. Many thanks to everyone who has helped us along the way, and to all of our members for making the Zone a wonderful place to be. Most of all, we send thanks and much love always to Johnny Depp, for being a continual source of inspiration and delight–he’s the reason we’re here! –Part-Time Poet

New images from Tim Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND!

The August issue of Vanity Fair, the one with Heath Ledger on the cover, treats us to a “Spotlight” article on Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland called “Mad about the Hatter,” and three new photos by Mary Ellen Mark–one each of Mia Wasikowska as Alice, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen. You can see lovely large versions of the Vanity Fair photos on ComingSoon.net HERE. Enjoy!

The Zone thanks Lu for breaking the news and Theresa for adding scans to the News & Views forum. You can read much more about Alice in Wonderland there. –Part-Time Poet

Johnny Depp leaves the Plaza Athenee in Paris–new video

Here’s a great find from You Tube–some footage of Johnny Depp as he left the Plaza Athenee hotel in Paris on July 4th. Johnny exits the hotel, accompanied by security chief Jerry Judge, and gets into a black car to be whisked away for some well-deserved family time. Promotion for Public Enemies has ended–time to relax!


The Zone thanks Theresa for finding and sharing the video. –Part-Time Poet