Variety reports La Favorite is not a Netflix original that Netflix is co-financing. After a 15-month domestic theatrical window, the streamer has granted Netflix France a license to broadcast the Johnny Depp film.
Netflix is not supporting Johnny Depp’s return to acting after his defamation trial against Amber Heard. Netflix is not providing “financial backing” for the French film “La Favorite,” which stars Johnny Depp, according to a person close to the streaming behemoth who spoke to Variety. The film has a 15-month theatrical window in France, but Netflix has a permission to broadcast it there only after that window has expired. Not a Netflix (The Vampire Diaries Season 9) original, the movie.
Depp’s upcoming feature La Favorite will be his first since playing photojournalist Eugene Smith in the 2020 film Minamata, which was filmed in 2019 but only recently made its international debut. According to Bloomberg, Depp will make his French acting debut in La Favorite, which will be filmed in and around Paris this summer, opposite Le Besco as Madame du Barry.
Johnny Depp filed a defamation lawsuit against Heard over a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which the Aquaman star discussed her experience as “a public figure representing domestic abuse” without specifically mentioning Depp. On June 1, a jury found in Depp’s favor in the case of Depp v. Heard, giving him $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages (later lowered to Virginia’s statutory maximum of $350,000). A $2 million defamation verdict against Depp was also reached by the jury on a single count.
Johnny Depp addressed the “Hollywood boycott of me” in an August 2021 interview with The Sunday Times after losing a libel case against The Sun over the tabloid’s portrayal of him as a “wife-beater” who had battered Heard. Depp’s remarks come months after his departure from the Fantastic Beasts television series, a Harry Potter spinoff produced by Warner Bros., where he played the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald.
In recent weeks, Depp’s lawyers denied “made up” allegations that Disney (Moon Knight Season 2) was prepared to pay the Pirates actor $301 million to reprise his iconic role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the series. Depp has made smaller films including The Professor (2018), City of Lies (2018), and Waiting for the Barbarians (2018) since his final roles as Sparrow in 2017’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and as Grindelwald in 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2019).
In “La Favorite,” Depp will play Louis XV of France. The movie, which Variety revealed earlier this year is filming this summer for three months at locations including the Versailles Palace, is directed by “Mon Roi” filmmaker Maiwenn. In the film, Maiwenn also has a leading role as Jeanne du Barry, a countess who served as Louis XV’s final mistress.
Pascal Caucheteux and Gregoire Sorlat’s Why Not Productions (“A Prophet”), based in Paris, are in charge of producing the endeavor. World sales are handled by Wild Bunch International (“Titane”). Depp’s upcoming performance in “La Favorite” will be his first significant one since Andrew Levitas’ “Minamata” in 2020, a movie about W. Eugene Smith, a war photographer.
On June 1, Depp prevailed in his defamation action against Heard. The “Aquaman” actor was found guilty of defaming Depp when she made references to her prior allegations of domestic abuse in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed, and she is now required to pay $10.35 million in damages to Depp ($10 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages), according to the jury’s verdict.
Regardless of the outcome, Depp wrote in a statement after the verdict, “The purpose of bringing this action was to uncover the truth from the very beginning.” “I owed it to my children and to everyone who has continued to stand by me unwaveringly to speak the truth. Now that I have finally succeeded, I feel at ease.”