Hollywood Insider Very Confident in Depp's Sweeney Todd

From a David Poland blog post that says Depp has an 80% chance of pulling the leading male Oscar next year:

"I believe now that Johnny Depp is a 95% bet to be nominated for Best Actor as the title character in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in a very, very crowded field of 2007 male movie performances… and an 80% chance to win.

Word from the set about his performance - from multiple sources - is excellent. He was nominated in the last two years before missing this year with the Pirates sequel. But the Pirates threequel is actually more a help than a hindrance. Huge box office power followed by an unexpected (though people have come to expect the unexpected from Depp) performance as the lead of a Grand Guignol opera… manna from heaven to Academy voters who are more than ready to deliver this guy an Oscar.

The biggest question is whether he could sing the role. But everyone from Sondheim, who auditioned him, to everyone who I know of who has heard him sing this role, is “thumbs up.”"

Updated On: 3/1/07 at 12:14 PM

Exactly. What do "Hollywood Insiders" know about muscial theatre?

I certainly have faith in Depp's ability to do great things with this role, but I'm thoroughly amused by the fact that people are throwing around exact statistics as if it were a science... especially this far in advance. He has an 80% chance based on what? Lists of other performances nobody has seen yet?

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Reminds me of a statement in a funny e-mail I got just yesterday:

"46% of statistics are made up on the spot."

I just caught a bit of Cry Baby the other day -- his voice was pretty good...the score was not very remarkable but he is not ear-splitting like Richard Gere was. Poor Jerry, he must have have cotton shoved in his ears.

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Just thought I'd pass along the article - not trying to make a personal statement :o)

His voice is dubbed in Cry Baby (the film).

And Sweeney Todd JUST started shooting this week. (Late start)

And when is ONE single blogger considered multiple "hollywood insiders?"

Poland is kind of a flake. Go to hollywood-elsewhere.com to read about the holes in this particular column... I'm VERY excited (and nervous) about the Sweeney adaptation, but talking Oscar before most of the performance has even been filmed is just silly.

In the off-chance that he DOES get Oscar nominated (which would be cool), Poland just wants to be able to say, "I called it first!"

I used the plural because of "Word from the set about his performance - from multiple sources - is excellent."

"Exactly. What do "Hollywood Insiders" know about muscial theatre?"

Who knows...but last I checked, this is a movie, not theatre.

Also, Richard Gere used a period singing voice for his Billy Flynn in CHICAGO -- that's not his regular singing voice it's a character voice he chose. He wanted to evoke a Rudy Valle-ish type of singing style which is very reminiscent of most male singers circa 1920's.

Same issue with Eddie Murphy's Jimmy Early in DREAMGIRLS. Eddie normally sings in a higher register -- he chose that Jame Brown-ish singing voice for Jimmy as that's how it was originally written for the character. To him, that's not his singing voice but Jimmy's.

I know he's not a random blogger, just an occasionally hysterical one. Again, the movie is in its FIRST week of (delayed) shooting.

Unless they are shooting Depp's ENTIRE role in the first week, and have already assembled and completed his footage completely, and Poland has seen it all, then Oscar guesses are just a waste of time-- and make you look jump-the-gun silly.

It also makes him look like a paid studio "insider" with opinions that shouldn't be taken too seriously. (In addition, a lot of his predictions and opinions -- see Eddie Murphy and Dreamgirls -- seem to rise and fall dramatically with what OTHER people are saying.

People have misread the title of the thread. David Poland is a columnist for the HOLLYWOOD INSIDER, a movie trade publication like VARIETY.

And, I assure you, after even a week of reviewing dailies, the director and his production team know whether or not they're getting a good performance.

Let's not forget about the many instances where stars that have begun a project have been released in a matter of days. I remind everyone of Mandy Patinkin's classic firing after a few days of shooting on Nora Ephron's HEARTBURN; he was subsequently replaced by Jack Nicholson. One, just one, of many examples.

Chill, peeps...

I would fire Mandy Patinkin from any project I was working on.

God I hate his voice.

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