Johnny Depp has been through some rough times, as of late and while he got a break with Dior keeping him in their campaign, it seems that his latest movie ‘Minamata’ is being buried by the movie studio, according to Deadline.

The news about this Johnny Depp movie comes from the director of Minamata, a film about the effects of mercury poisoning in the titular Japanese town because of corporate negligence around production in the area. Depp plays photojournalist Eugene Smith in the movie which is based on a true story. But despite the flick being filmed more than a year ago, and having been completed, it has no release date in the United States. It doesn’t look like it will ever be shown. 

The director of Minamata, Andrew Levitas has reached out to the studio, MGM, questioning why the film hasn’t been released at this point despite having been originally screened all the way back in February 2020 at the Berlin International Film Festival. Even with Covid concerns around theater openings, this kind of timeline would appear way too long for a movie of this size. In Levitas’s letter, he says that the studio told him they were going to “bury” the film because of Johnny Depp and his persona non grata status in Hollywood right now. 

Levitas makes the argument that the topic of the film, the devastating effects of mercury poisoning in Minamata because of the Chisso Corporation’s negligence should be tantamount in the release plans, not the status of the movie’s star. Levitas, in his letter, also included pictures of the toll this poisoning took on the local population, something originally documented in Life magazine by Smith. 

It would be best to just give Depp fans what they want and stop wasting so much time and money not releasing it.

Let’s get some #JusticeforJohnny here.