Their off-screen romance may currently be red hot, but Johnny Depp and Amber Heard didn't exactly heat up the box office this summer as their respective films, "The Lone Ranger" and "Paranoia," both totally tanked.
The failure of "Paranoia" is especially epic, as it makes for the worst opening of the year (and the worst of Heard co-star Harrison Ford's entire career). The corporate conspiracy thriller, which also stars Gary Oldman and Liam Hemsworth, cost $35 million to produce and made only $3.5 million over its opening weekend — indeed, the worst debut of 2013 so far (for a film opening in more than 2,000 theaters — 2,459, to be exact, with the film yielding a mere $1,423 per-theater average).
Meanwhile, audiences didn't exactly saddle up for Johnny Depp's big tentpole offering this summer, "The Lone Ranger," which earned only a little over $87 million at the domestic box office. The international take of $130 million brings its total box office bounty to $217 million — a startlingly low figure for a film that reportedly cost at least $215 million.
Depp and Heard aren't strangers to box office failure — in fact, they've weathered such a storm together before on the very project where their love first reportedly blossomed. Their first onscreen collaboration, "The Rum Diary" (2011), made only a little more than $13 million at the domestic box office against a budget of $45 million. While the works of Hunter S. Thompson, on whose novel the film is based, certainly have a loyal following, "The Rum Diary" was deemed too watered-down to make an impression — especially after the gonzo stylings of Depp's previous Thompson outing, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998).
Off-screen, however, Depp and Heard are doing just fine. The couple held hands at the premiere of "The Lone Ranger" and she's been spotted out in public with Depp and his two children from his long-term relationship with French actress Vanessa Paradis.
Heard seems completely fine with the fact that she'll inevitably be a prime target of the media as she's dating one of the hottest single men in Hollywood. "If I didn't want to be scrutinized, I would have just stayed in Texas," Heard told net-a-porter.com's digital magazine The Edit (via the Daily Mail).
But Depp seems particularly dissatisfied with his career lately, as he's mentioned on more than one occasion this summer that he's mulling over retirement. "At a certain point, you start thinking, and when you add up the amount of dialogue that you say per year, for example, and you realize that you've said written words more than you've actually had a chance to say your own words, you start thinking of that as a kind of insane option for a human being," Depp said in July.
It's not like Depp and Heard aren't going to bounce back on screen. Depp will next be seen in director Wally Pfister's hush-hush sci-fi project, "Transcendence," opening April 18, 2014, and will return to Stephen Sondheim territory with his turn as the Wolf in Rob Marshall's adaptation of "Into the Woods," opening December 25, 2014. He's also still in good graces with Disney as he's due to return as Jack Sparrow in the fifth installment of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, opening July 10, 2015, and he recently signed on to reprise his role as the Mad Hatter in the sequel to "Alice in Wonderland."
Heard's star continues to rise (for the record, she'd rather be called "an up-and-comer" than "a flash in the pan") as she'll next be seen in Robert Rodriguez's latest grind house offering, "Machete Kills," opening October 11. She'll also be seen opposite Kevin Costner and Connie Nielsen in director McG's action thriller, "Three Days to Kill," opening February 14, 2014.
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