Johnny Depp

A certain branch of criticism against the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie back when it came out in 2011 focused on the fact that this was the first one with barely a trace of Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, two characters we’d all grown to love through a trilogy of movies, and, arguably, who are the actual heart and soul of the series. Without them, On Stranger Tides felt adrift, unable to find an emotional focus despite introducing a new generation of generically attractive leads. The good news for those of us who have stuck with the series this far is, thanks to the new international trailer, we know Elizabeth is coming back too. Along with a few more of Captain Jack’s “friends.”

It’s been a while now since we’ve seen Orlando Bloom dressed up in pirate gear. The actor didn’t appear in the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean, but will make his return as Will Turner in the upcoming Dead Men Tell No Tales. The only thing is, you might not totally recognize him.

Disney The smartest thing that the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise ever did was introduce a revolving door of ghost pirate enemies. I don’t really care why Javier Bardem’s character hates Jack Sparrow, nor do I think for a moment that this is the film that will permanently kill Johnny Depp’s character off for good, but those plots points are secondary, the franchise’s equivalent of a ghost McGuffin (a McGhostin?). All I really care about is seeing charismatic actors like Bardem play campy villains.

For many movie fans, international trailers are an afterthought, an attempt to repackage previously released footage for a new market. But given the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies abroad, it’s probably safe to say that Disney takes its international footage pretty seriously. After all, the previous film in the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, grossed a total of $240 million domestically and $804 million internationally. Put another way: the film failed to make back its budget ($250 million) in the United States but tripled it abroad.

How do you make a successful Harry Potter prequel without Harry Potter? J.K. Rowling’s new spinoff, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, travels back nearly 70 years to 1926 before the events of the first Potter movie to tell a whole new story in a new setting with (almost) all new characters. Reviving the magical universe from the second biggest franchise of all time is a pretty risky move, but Fantastic Beasts does a good job of blending the familiar with the new.

There’s a famous part of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland where an ominous voice says “Dead men tell no tales!” So I guess this is an adaptation of that line? These Pirates of the Caribbean movies are getting really granular.

Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express hasn’t left the station yet, as it still doesn’t have a full cast. Angelina Jolie was considering a role in the remake, but she dropped out over this summer, and while Charlize Theron had her eye on the movie, nothing has come of that as of yet. Hopefully production on the film will start chugging along soon, because Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer are both reportedly being considered.

Much of Tim Burton’s 2010 ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was a forgettable, unsavory mess, but it did have some redeemable qualities. The filmmaker’s eye-popping visuals and imaginative production design were the best aspects of the largely unbearable Disney movie. But you’ll find none of that in the new sequel.

Alice Through the Looking Glass is one of the more curious sequel developments in recent years. Tim Burton’s CGI / live-action Wonderland hybrid (okay, the scales were definitely tipped in CGI’s favor) did fairly well at the box office, but we can thank international audiences for its real success…and for this sequel, which has a brand new trailer filled with wacky characters and lots of cute wordplay involving “time.”

The Walking Dead has made use of several corpse-ified cameos across its six years, from Hines Ward to Scott Ian, and Sunday’s “Not Tomorrow Yet” stealthily afforded us the most A-list undead of all. Did you spot Johnny Depp’s likeliness as a member of The Walking Dead?

It’s sad to hear Alan Rickman’s voice. We lost the great Die Hard and Harry Potter star just a few weeks ago; Rickman died after a battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 69. His work in Alice Through the Looking Glass is his final onscreen performance; he plays Absolem, the Caterpillar. That’s him saying “You’ve been gone too long Alice. There are matters that cannot be neglected.

Last year, Forbes dubbed Adam Sandler the most overpaid actor in Hollywood with the help of some basic math skills — the publication looks at how much a studio makes for every dollar they paid their leading man. Johnny Depp came in second place in 2014, and although Sandler has had an impressively terrible year, Depp succeeded in overthrowing the former funny man and stealing his overpaid crown.