Johnny Depp’s Name Officially Removed From Failing Film
Johnny Depp is one of the most prolific actors in Hollywood, starring in everything from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean to Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands.
While the A-lister is used to making headlines, over the past couple of years, Depp has found himself mentioned in the press far more due to his abuse trial against ex-wife Amber Heard. While Depp lost many of his beloved roles due to this, there is one role that he was recently uncredited for, and there is an entirely different reason.
Tusk is a 2014 horror-comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, who, at the time, did not know Johnny too well. The film originated from an episode of Smith’s podcast, SModcast, where he and co-host Scott Mosier discussed an online classified ad seeking a roommate willing to dress as a walrus.
This bizarre premise inspired Smith to create Tusk.
The film follows Wallace Bryton (played by Justin Long), a podcaster who travels to Canada to interview an eccentric adventurer, Howard Howe (played by Michael Parks). However, Wallace’s plans take a horrifying turn when he becomes the captive of Howe. The mysterious and disturbed man has sinister intentions of turning Wallace into a human-walrus hybrid. Howe is certainly giving Canadians a bad name with that one.
As Wallace undergoes a bizarre and extremely grotesque transformation, his girlfriend Ally (played by Genesis Rodriguez) and his podcast co-host Teddy (played by Haley Joel Osment) become increasingly concerned about his disappearance. They team up with an ex-cop named Guy Lapointe (played by Johnny Depp) to uncover the disturbing truth behind Howard Howe’s macabre experiment.
As we mentioned, Depp, however is not credited for the role, in fact, his character is. Guy Lapointe plays Guy Lapointe in Tusk, which would make sense if Johnny Depp’s name was Guy Lapointe, but as we know, it is not.
If you are a fan of Johnny Depp, you are likely wondering why his name was removed from the credits of the film. Typically, if someone is removed from a movie in any way, it is due to a controversy. We specifically have seen this with Johnny Depp himself.
After his now ex-wife Amber Heard accused Depp of abusing her in the most horrific of ways (tossing her into a closet, “throwing a phone at her face, which she says left her bruised. Heard said that Depp threatened to kill her on several occasions”, according to Insider), Johnny Depp’s career took a fast plummet. The beloved actor watched some of his most prominent roles, including Captain Jack Sparrow in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean series, be ripped from him.
A franchise whose success is highly attributed to the actor and his portrayal of the rum-loving pirate, which had grown so popular that Disney even transformed their Pirates of the Caribbean attractions to include animatronic replicas of Depp.
As well as cast performers to imitate Depp’s rendition of Sparrow, turned its back on Depp in seconds in an attempt to not be associated with the actor and the negative press he was getting.
We know now, of course, that Depp was not guilty.
That being said, Tusk was a pre-trial film, and it does not seem that Depp’s behavior caused Smith to remove his name. In fact, at Screen Rant also noted it has not been specified exactly why Depp is not credited in the movie.
One guess could be that this was a character choice that Guy Lapointe would make. Depp has been known to get quite into his characters when filming, so perhaps he wanted to really push the validity of the character, making him as real as possible.
Oddly, there is a real Guy Gerard Lapointe, but he is a Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman who played for the Montreal Canadiens, St. Louis Blues and Boston Bruins in the National Hockey League, as stated by Wikipedia.
Regardless, Depp can afford to have his name go uncredited, as he is popular enough that everyone who saw the movie knew exactly who he was.
There is also the chance that Depp did not want to be associated with the film. As seen on Numbers, Tusk had a minimal $3 million budget, and was not profitable, making only $1,887,554 worldwide. Perhaps if the film was marketing that Depp was in it, instead of Lapointe, it may have done better.
Depp was also not first choice for the film. The Hollywood Reporter shared an interview with Smith, “I told the audience that I’d given a copy of the script to Quentin, in hopes that he’d play the relentless French Canadian cop on the trail of a monster-maker.
Then the weirdest thing happened: Quentin passed on the role of Guy Lapointe. QT said he dug the script and couldn’t wait to watch Parks (pictured, right) let loose his internal Kraken, but he had no interest in acting at the moment. It was a bummer, as having Q in the mix would’ve been poetic.”
While Hollywood is full of actors gaining roles after someone else passed on it, even Depp got Sparrow after Robert DeNiro said no, so this was likely not a big deal.
Johnny Depp recently wrapped the Amedeo Modigliani biopic Modi which he directed, as well as his role of King Louis XV in the French biopic, La Favorite.
