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Edwin Davies: You know you're in a bad way when you look back on the opening weekends of The Lone Ranger and Dark Shadows with nostalgia. For me, the rot set in around the time of his last undisputed hit, Alice in Wonderland. While that film made a staggering amount of money, it was not well-liked by critics (in fact it was the first of his collaborations with Tim Burton not to be certified fresh by Rotten Tomatoes) or audiences, and it seemed to be the tipping point after which Depp's affectations became empty shtick. In the years since, the qualities that people used to praise Depp for - his outlandishness, his willingness to take on weird roles that others might balk at - are now derided, to the extent that Mortdecai's ads made it look like he had fallen completely into self-parody.

The problem now is that people no longer associate the name Johnny Depp with quality. Looking over his filmography over the last few years, the thing that leaps out at me is not that so many of his films lost money, but how bad they are. He starred in plenty of films that made no money in the 1990s, but they were, barring a few exceptions, critically acclaimed, which is why he was such a cultishly adored figure, and why his success with the first Pirates film seemed deserved. Now, he's seen as someone who makes bad films and he's bad in them. At this point, I think he needs to do what Matthew McConaughey did a few years ago and start taking on smaller films that might help rebuild his reputation with critics, since I think it'd take a lot for him to win back the affection of audiences at this point.

Bruce Hall: Well, it looks to me like over the last five years Johnny Depp has been involved in a lot of profitable films - at least on the surface.

Granted, what constitutes "profitability" in Hollywood is a pretty big, gray area. But going back to 2009 - if we're strictly talking box office - the only "high profile" projects Depp has been involved in that didn't make money are The Rum Diary, The Lone Ranger (and that was close), and Transcendence (even closer).

I think part of the problem is that some of these films - like Public Enemies and Dark Shadows - earn so little domestically in comparison to their budget, people automatically call them out as disasters. I could see that, if it was still the 1990s and nobody cared about international dollars.

That's not to say that when The Tourist earns $67 million domestically against a $100 million budget that it's not cause for concern. But the fact remains that worldwide, that film earned $278 million. And Dark Shadows, widely considered a 20-megaton nuclear bomb, earned $236 million worldwide against a $150 million budget. The last time I checked, a dollar spends the same no matter where it's earned. But the fact remains that despite the final numbers, and no matter how you spin it, so many of these films under-performed so badly on this side of the pond that there's no denying it...

Johnny Depp has a problem. But let's forget about the money and focus on something Edwin said, which is that "people no longer associate Depp with quality." I couldn't agree more.

Depp HAS been playing weirdos his whole career - but Edward Scissorhands is a really good movie. Ed Wood is freaking fantastic. On the flip side, I don't care how much money Public Enemies made or where it happened - that was a solidly mediocre film. So was Alice in Wonderland. I think most of us would agree that Dark Shadows was a steaming pile of dog vomit. And while I know people who argue that The Lone Ranger gets more hate than it deserves, it also didn't come anywhere close to living up to that massive budget.

And while I am apparently one of three people on earth who hates the Pirates of the Caribbean films more than Brussels sprouts and cancer combined, even the people who DO like it seem to like it less each time they see one. Lately, even his most successful films seem to divide his biggest fans on a critical level. There truly is a common perception that Depp has taken to exclusively playing androgynous weirdos in funny hats - which is neither entirely accurate or fair. But the term "perception is 99 percent of reality" applies nowhere better than it does in the entertainment world.

Literally moments ago I asked the Missus - who doesn't watch a lot of movies and had no idea Johnny Depp was in a new film this week - whether she knew Johnny Depp had a new movie out. She said she did not. But when I asked her to guess what his character was like, she said - and I quote:

"That same guy he always plays?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case. Johnny Depp has a problem. Too often, when people think of him they seem to think about vaguely effeminate oddballs prancing around in candy colored clothes, simpering and mugging - but not ACTING. What happened to Donnie Brasco Depp? Ed Wood Depp? I want to see Johnny Depp the actor, not the inveterate nutcase who seems to phone in his performances and reminds me more and more of Nicholas Cage with every passing year.

And, I'd venture to say, there are an increasing number of people who agree with me.

Michael Lynderey: Well, Bruce, Depp has Black Mass coming out later this year, which has an A-list cast, a rising director, and it's about gangsters, who are inexplicably popular. Joel Edgerton is in it, too (I believe he's playing the Egyptian ambassador), and so is Benedict Cumberbatch (his pitch-perfect Boston accent has already been praised by anonymous reviewers who haven't seen the film). In short, Black Mass is at least somewhat likely to be well reviewed, gross north of $65 million, and be a noted awards contender, with Depp possibly up for Best Actor.

And if all that doesn't happen, well, at least they tried. After several years of bad career choices, it's a step in the right direction for Depp. Now, if he could only do about three of those for every half-hour of the upcoming Pirates sequel...

David Mumpower: I think that the issue works in reverse of how we are all answering it. Everyone has provided salient explanations for his recent struggles. For me, the explanation is something different. The Jack Sparrow era when Depp could do no wrong is the exception. What happened before and since is the rule. For that one period starting with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and ending with Alice in Wonderland, Depp suddenly became a box office draw and, in fact, demonstrably the number one draw in the world. What we've witnessed since then is a second batch of Blow/The Astronaut's Wife/From Hell releases where audiences seem to be going, "Ohhhhh. Johnny *Depp*!" The oddity is why what he had done throughout his career suddenly became so captivating when he did it as a pirate, even in Chocolat.

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