Director of Pirates of the Caribbean’s Western Masterpiece Officially Lands a New Streamer

With two upcoming films competing to be called Johnny Depp's comeback vehicle — the holiday release Ebenezer will arrive before the action thriller Day Drinker — younger audiences may want to revisit his earlier work. While the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise remains as popular as ever — Depp is being courted to return — one of the star's most overlooked movies is coming to Peacock. Calling the film underrated feels odd, since it was a major critical and commercial hit. In fact, it even won an Oscar. The movie remains a key entry in Depp's long list of unusual feature films, and although it was mainly aimed at children, it drew inspiration from several classics of the '60s and '70s.

Among the biggest inspirations behind the film was the spaghetti Western classic The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. It took its name from another classic of the genre, Django. The plot, meanwhile, drew from Chinatown. Depp's character was a throwback to his own cult classic, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. With such decidedly adult influences, the film's appeal for children was questioned. The late critic Roger Ebert wondered in his four-star review, "The more movies you’ve seen, the more you may like it... But let’s say you haven’t seen lots of movies. Let’s say you’re a kid. (The movie) may surprise you because it’s an animated film that plays like a real movie and really gets you involved."