Johnny Depp in Wonderland…Again!

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ell if it isn’t time for news of another sequel! This time it’s the follow-up to 2010’s hugely successful Alice in Wonderland, for which Disney have again managed to secure the services of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.

So although news stories of this type may feel a tad like Groundhog Day for some movie-goers (I wonder if there’ll ever be a sequel to that), it’ll be music to the ears of others. The fact is, for all the box-office smashes, Alice in Wonderland received some pretty lukewarm reviews, but Depp was considered its main saving grace.

This is probably a good thing, as his star has faded a little in recent times. His last two outings, Dark Shadows and The Lone Ranger, were both disappointing, with the latter falling victim to some particularly scathing criticism. But you can’t keep a good man down, something that Exhibitor Relations box office analyst, Jeff Bock, would attest to: “Depp is a star as well as a rare talent, so there is no doubt he can sustain a few misfires.”

Besides which, along with reprising his role in the next take-on the Lewis Carroll novels, Depp has familiar territory on the horizon, namely a fifth instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean. On the downside, this has begged the question of whether or not this is a conscious decision by the actor himself, in the wake of a double-turkey, in order to generate some sure-fire hits. As the sequel will be directed by James Bobin, rather than old pal Tim Burton, many feel this could well be the case.

There is no release date for the Alice sequel just yet, but when the finished article does hit the cinemas, a certain Hollywood A-lister should be left grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat.