The Johnny Depp Fantasy On Max That Will Make You Cry A River
These days Johnny Depp is a household name for his incredible outings as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, as well as a number of other leading performances, including his frequent collaborations with visionary filmmaker Tim Burton. The film that started the dark and whimsical pairing, 1990’s Edward Scissorhands, is currently available to stream on Max.
The film is an iconic sci-fi fantasy that catapulted Johnny Depp‘s illustrious career as a leading man to new heights and continues to make audiences weep to this day.
Edward Scissorhands was the first collobaration between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.
Tim Burton’s dark fairytale follows Johnny Depp as the titular hero, an animated humanoid puppet brought to life by a mad scientist, portrayed by Vincent Price. After constructing the animated man, the scientist fails to put the finishing touches on his creation before his untimely demise, leading to the boy’s freakish appearance and razor-sharp appendages on both hands.
After spending a brief period discovering the strange and terrifying world around him, Johnny Depp’s Edward Scissorhands is met and brought home by a loving suburban woman played by Dianne Wiest.
After meeting and falling in love with the woman’s daughter Kim, played by Winona Ryder, Edward begins to tap into a deep well of emotional depth and artistic talent, despite his status as a social outcast.
The film is the first of many collaborative efforts between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, with over half a dozen film collaborations to follow in the wake of Edward Scissorhands‘ enormous success.
The pair would go on to recreate their collaborative magic in films such as 1994’s Ed Wood, 1999’s Sleepy Hollow, and 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, taking Burton’s strange and esoteric style and bringing it to the forefront of the modern language of cinema.
Johnny Depp and Tim Burton’s most recent work together came in the form of 2012’s Dark Shadows, with Depp starring as yet another dark gothic figure. Though the film received middling reviews from critics and audiences alike, getting killed at the box office alongside Marvel’s Avengers, Dark Shadows has become a cult favorite among Tim Burton super-fans.
It has been over a decade since they have worked together, and there is still hope that another Depp and Burton collaboration could happen, with recent talks of Johnny Depp starring in a film alongside Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega or perhaps even in the form of an Edward Scissorhands sequel.
Edward Scissorhands is an iconic sci-fi fantasy that catapulted Johnny Depp’s illustrious career as a leading man to new heights and continues to make audiences weep to this day.
Though Tim Burton has expressed in the past that Johnny Depp was his first and only choice to bring the iconic character of Edward Scissorhands to life, the studio had asked him to meet with a number of other big-name actors who could have taken on the role.
Apparently, Tom Cruise was a studio favorite, with Tim Burton rejecting his casting on the basis that Cruise wanted the film to have a conventionally happy ending, in stark contrast to the dark and grim tone that Burton had described.
Other actors who expressed interest in the film before Johnny Depp had officially signed on include Tom Hanks, Gary Oldman, Jim Carrey, and John Cusack, with later reports expressing that William Hurt, Robert Downey Jr., and even the godfather of pop music, Michael Jackson had expressed interest in bringing the sensitive scissor-fingered protagonist to life on the big screen.
Johnny Depp understood the assignment perfectly, it is fun to imagine what any of the other possible candidates could have brought to their Edward Scissorhands performances.
In recent years, Johnny Depp has taken something of a hiatus from acting and public life, opting instead to spend time quietly vacationing in Europe and following his friends around the countryside as they tour with their band.
What’s Next for Johnny Depp
This move comes after the highly tumultuous and widely publicized legal battle which surrounded Depp for several years alongside his then-wife Amber Heard.
Much like the character of Edward Scissorhands, Depp himself became embroiled in a public scandal in which he was misunderstood and attacked by the public and even called a monster.
Since the dust has settled on the legal battle, both actors have taken some time to recover and reinvigorate their spirits, with sources close to the pair ensuring that they are much happier and healthier now than they were when they were together.
While there has been no word yet on whether or not Johnny Depp has officially signed on to produce an Edward Scissorhands sequel, the topic has been continually broached for a number of years, and his triumphant return to film could be just the time to get the project off the ground.
For now, the 1990 classic is available to watch on Max.
