In a bid to organise himself, Johnny Depp has dumped longtime agency UTA and signed with CAA. The agency announced the development this morning.
This is a shocker, and an exceptional development on multiple levels starting with the fact that stars long tenured with one agency, who’ve carried billion-dollar franchises, don’t often move. Some will simply read this as a big “get” for CAA in a continuing rivalry with UTA that ratcheted up last year when nearly a dozen CAA agents jumped to UTA and took clients including Will Ferrell and rising star Chris Pratt. Others will see this as a star in a crisis moment making a course change after recent movies didn’t work, and a loud marital breakup cast him in an unflattering light in the tabloid cross hairs.
Others who follow the dynamic between talent and reps will focus on the end of one of the most enduring relationships between an agent and a movie star. That would be the three-decade collaboration between Depp and his UTA agent Tracey Jacobs, who signed Depp after watching his heartthrob turn as baby-faced undercover cop Tom Hanson on the Fox series 21 Jump Street. Together, they transitioned Depp into a globally bankable movie star whose films have collectively grossed more than $7 billion. She was a ferocious advocate for Depp and they were indelibly linked, down to the gold plaque bearing her name that Depp displayed in a prime booth at The Viper Room, when he was part-owner of the Sunset Strip nightspot.
