Johnny Depp’s Oscar Nomination Highly Unlikely

Johnny Depp will most likely be sitting out on the Oscars race next year. The actor’s name has been noticeably absent this awards season, with the exception of appearing as a nominee for Favorite Movie Icon for the People’s Choice Awards.

Depp is a three-time Oscar nominee. He was first nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 2004 for his role as Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. The following year, Depp was nominated for Best Actor for playing the part of Sir James Matthew Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, in the film Finding Neverland. And in 2008, he was nominated for the musical thriller Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Last year, Johnny Depp’s performance in Black Mass, a crime film about the infamous Boston gang leader James “Whitey” Bulger, garnered much attention and quite a bit of Oscar buzz. Variety film critic Scott Foundas described Depp’s work in the film “a bracing return to form for the star after a series of critical and commercial misfires” and even called the actor’s performance in Black Mass his “career-best work.” Depp, however, was not nominated for Best Actor for the 2016 Academy Awards, an omission that sites such as Entertainment Tonight noted as a snub.

The actor himself has notably expressed that he has little interest in obtaining an Oscar. According to CinemaBlend, Johnny Depp cited a fear of delivering an awards speech and his aversion towards competition as reasons for him not wanting an Oscar.

“I don’t want to win one of those things ever, you know…I don’t want to have to talk…The idea of winning means that you’re in competition with someone and I’m not in competition with anybody…They gave me one of those things, like a nomination, two or three times. A nomination is plenty.”

Even if Depp changed his mind about winning an Oscar, the 2017 Academy Awards is unlikely to be his year to shine. The actor’s most high-profile role in a movie this year was the Mad Hatter in Alice Through the Looking Glass. The sequel to the 2010 film Alice in Wonderland was not only spurned by critics, but was also a major disappointment at the box office. Alice Through the Looking Glass ended up grossing only $299 million worldwide, a whopping $726 million plunge compared to the worldwide grosses of its predecessor, which made a little over $1 billion. Given the film’s critical and commercial failures, the chances of Johnny Depp being nominated for an Oscar for his role in Alice Through the Looking Glass are incredibly slim (nearly the same as his chances of getting nominated for a film like Yoga Hosers).

The year 2016 has been a rocky one for Depp. His tumultuous marriage to actress Amber Heard has been marked by accusations of domestic abuse. Heard filed for divorce in May and on May 27, a Los Angeles judge granted her a temporary restraining order that would prohibit Depp from getting too close to his estranged wife. The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard divorce saga, nonetheless, seems unlikely to reach a conclusion any time soon. Although the couple had agreed to an approximately $7 million settlement back in August, the divorce settlement has yet to be finalized and People has recently reported that Depp filed court documents asking Heard to pay $100,000 for his attorney fees.

The actor also has not had much of a lucky streak at the box office as of late. For the second year in a row, Depp has topped the Forbes list of being Hollywood’s most overpaid actor. According to Forbes, Johnny Depp’s last three movies earned only $2.8 for every $1 that the actor was paid.

[Featured Image by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images]