What is Mortdecai? Yes, we know Johnny Depp IS Mortdecai. The movie’s unavoidable marketing campaign has made that breathlessly clear. But is there any reason we should care? Is Mortdecai a person with whom we are supposed to be familiar? According to Wikipedia, Mortdecai is the subject of a series of caper novels written in the ’70s. Is this common knowledge? Did the makers of Mortdecai think it was common knowledge? Did they think there was a legion of Mortecai fans eagerly awaiting the film adaptation of their favorite book? If so, they were sorely mistaken.
The weekend was not kind to Johnny Depp or his new movie, which pulled in only $4.1 million. That’s a lot of money to people like us, but in Hollywood terms, it’s “disastrous.” Particularly when American Sniper, Clint Eastwood’s Iraq war film, is spinning heads everywhere by pulling in some truly crazy numbers. After just its second weekend in wide release, it’s already the second highest-grossing war movie of all time behind Saving Private Ryan, and it’s closing in fast. The lesson here: People do like war movies. They do not like Johnny Depp’s dumb mustache …
