93: The Johnny Depp Factor

The Escapist Staff

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Jul 10, 2006
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"However, I am going to be the bold and say, with pirates at their peak, it's time for them to step down. They're done. We've been saturated. Anything more and we'll become sick of them, like when a good song is overplayed on the radio. Pirates need to go out in a blaze of glory. This will likely happen during the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie: One more look at staggering Johnny Depp with lots of eyeliner, and then, boom - stick a cutlass in them; they're done."

Mur Lafferty posits that Pirates, as a cultural tour de force, are done.
The Johnny Depp Factor
 

Blaxton

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Dec 14, 2006
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Got to throw in my current movie genre of choice here: Westerns

Now, to say cowboy raised a suspicious eyebrow, because it?s so easily linked to old John Wayne movies. A clean-cut badass doesn't exactly sound like a good time to our modern "gritty" loving audience. Not that Wayne isn't a tough guy, but he?s just not tough enough for the current rising crop. But, that?s why I'm not talking about the West with John Wayne. I'm talking about the West with The Man with no Name: Mr. Clint Eastwood. One of two men absolutely required if you want to make an epic Spaghetti Western.

You can't watch Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; or even Unforigiven without dreaming of owning a couple six-shooters and riding around collecting bounties, governed only by your own fuzzy morals.

There have been a couple of games already built around this version of the west: Gun and Red Dead Revolver. Red Dead Revolver takes a number of stylistic cues from Sergio Leone's Man with no Name trilogy.

Not only are there games already out there using the genre and style, but Johnny Depp has also been in a sort-of Western movie: Once Upon a Time in Mexico (the name bears a strikingly resemblance to another very influential Leone film, One Upon a Time in the West). Granted Rodriguez is more of a quick paced action guy, so the film isn't your run of the mill western themed movie. Still, I think Depp could easily pull of the mysterious stoic character needed to front a really great western.

Just a quick quote from Eastwood here in Fistful of Dollars:
I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. You see, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughin' at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it.