Johnny Depp will not do your little gangster movie for anything less than $20 million

Disappointing all who were looking forward to Boston’s favorite son, Johnny Depp, finally making another movie for all his fellow Sullies like he did with Chocolat, Johnny Depp has dropped out of starring in Black Mass, the biopic of Boston mobster Whitey Bulger. The film—one of three Bulger projects announced in the wake of his capture, while ignoring the fact that The Departed kind of already covered this ground—reportedly had trouble selling at Cannes, despite having Barry Levinson in the director’s chair, and Johnny Depp in the chair reserved for tough, South Boston Irish guys. As a result, its budget was slashed and Depp was asked to take a pay cut from his standard $20 million fee all the way down to $10 million. Naturally, Depp refused (probably while saying, “$10 million? Get the fahk outta heeyah” and so on), and exited to concentrate on movies like Pirates Of The Caribbean 5 that can provide the far greater artistic reward of $20 million.