A French historical drama starring Johnny Depp is slated to open this year’s Cannes film festival.
According to reports, Jeanne du Barry, which stars the actor as Louis XV, will be unveiled on the Croisette on 16 May at a high-profile premiere. The film marks a major comeback for Depp after a much-publicised defamation trial involving his ex-wife Amber Heard.
The drama comes from actor-director Maïwenn, whose previous films Polisse and Mon Roi also screened at Cannes. It will open in French cinemas on the same day as its premiere.
Maïwenn also stars in the film as the title character, described as “a young working-class woman hungry for culture and pleasure, who uses her intelligence and allure to climb the rungs of the social ladder one by one” which makes her a favourite of Depp’s king.
It is Depp’s first film role since 2020’s Minamata which premiered at the Berlin film festival. The actor has since been embroiled in legal troubles. In March 2021, Depp lost a libel case in the UK after he sued the Sun for calling him a “wife-beater”.
He later accused Heard of defamation for an op-ed where she claimed she was the victim of domestic abuse. The court favoured Depp and the pair have since settled with Heard saying it was “not an act of concession”.
She added in an Instagram post: “I make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder.”
Depp was most recently seen in Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty fashion show for Amazon. His manager claimed that the actor lost out on a $22.5m deal to star in a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film after the op-ed.
This year’s Cannes film festival will also see premieres of Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
