BUCK: Is he one of your all-time favorite movie characters, Clay? Captain Jack Sparrow of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is getting quite a payday, apparently.
CLAY: Look, I am a huge proponent on every time they can make a move that everybody from 6 years old to 80-years-old can sit down and enjoy and not feel like it’s preaching to you in any way. And I feel like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, by and large, Captain Jack Sparrow… Say whatever you want about Johnny Depp’s own personal political predictions, but he bankrupted Amber Heard in a case that I think effectively ended #MeToo.
And nowthere is a report in the New York Post that he is going to get over $300 million to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in a couple of new moves to be made going forward, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and that they are going to make a Jack Sparrow streaming show as well. Now, in terms of comebacks, Buck? They canceled effectively — everybody did — Johnny Depp from Hollywood after these Amber Heard allegations went public in the Washington Post.
And then Johnny Depp filed a lawsuit that didn’t win for him in England, and then he came back in the United States in Northern Virginia and, again, bankrupted Amber Heard, may have effectively ended her career. They were making a big deal of the fact that she was shopping is the TJ Maxx recently. She may not be able to afford designer threads anymore. I shop in TJ Maxx.
BUCK: TJ Maxx is a great place.
CLAY: I was gonna say.
BUCK: That was a low blow. That’s a nice place.
CLAY: If you are a Hollywood superstar, most of the time you probably do not shop in TJ Maxx. So she owes I think $10.3 million, and he’s evidently getting 300 million, and he won the court case.
BUCK: And on top of that did you see that the receipts are in so far, Tom Cruise’s Top Gun remake Maverick or follow-on, whatever, not remake.
CLAY: Sequel.
BUCK: Yeah, I mean, a sequel. It’s been 30 years, I guess a sequel. A billion dollars at the box office, with a B, folks, a billion dollars. Tom Cruise’s most successful box office venture ever which, again, it means if you make movies that allow people to connect and enjoy themselves and come together, not only will they pay for it, they’ll go to the theater! They still do want that experience. They just don’t want to be lectured about how awful America is all the time.
CLAY: Yes.
BUCK: A little less of that might go a long way, it turns out.
CLAY: Is there a desperate demand right now in America — and if you are a Republican running for office, I’m telling you, people crave it — for “America is awesome” content. America is the greatest country in the world. The Democrats are running as if America is the worst country in the world. That is their perspective. Republicans should be punching back in a aggressive way, and I think the Maverick success epitomizes that, Buck.
BUCK: It’s gonna be quite a fall, my friends. We also need to win back the right to say things that are true. When you hear this story from a former editor of USA Today who got fired… We gotta break this down for you coming up because the answer to the question who can get pregnant can get you fired unless you say the wrong thing.