What's Next for Captain Jack? The New Films of Johnny Depp

In a often quoted blurb, Marlon Brando, who became great pals with Johnny Depp during filming of the 1995 theatrical release, Don Juan DeMarco, cautioned his young friend to slow down a bit.  As Depp recounts, "One time he said to me, 'How many films do you do a year?' I said, 'I don't know. Two or three.' He said, 'You've got to watch yourself.' I said, 'Why's that?' He said, 'Because we only have so many faces in our pocket.'"  Fortunately for diehard fans, and legions of new fans, Depp is still creatively at work mining a mother-load of new "faces" via three particularly intriguing characters.   I for one hope to grow old watching Captain Jack 4, 5, 6, 7, etc, but the rumor mill tells us we may have these other classic characters to savor as well.

To date, Depp's most written about new role (other than the next Captain Jack) is to be Sweeney Todd, the blade-wielding, justice-seeking barber of Victorian England.  The film adaptation will be based on the dark Stephen Sondheim 1979 Broadway musical, Sweeney Todd, a vehicle for Len Cariou in the title role and Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett.  To be directed by Tim Burton, natch, the new rendering will certainly play to the off-center, wackier side of the main character. Admittedly it is hard to get too much wackier than the original premise of a barber who kills people, aided by an assistant who bakes them in pies, all the while singing and cavorting, yet Depp and Burton managed to give Willy Wonka such an unsettling glint in the eye in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one can but imagine where they'll take Sweeney Todd.  Delicious.