Johnny Depp is moving back into a prominent studio-film role with Day Drinker, a Lionsgate thriller whose first teaser gives audiences their clearest look yet at the actor’s return to a large-scale Hollywood release. The film is scheduled to reach theaters on March 26, 2027.
Directed by Marc Webb and written by Zach Dean, Day Drinker centers on Lorna, a yacht bartender played by Madelyn Cline, whose encounter with a mysterious passenger named Kelly pulls her into a dangerous criminal world. Depp plays Kelly with a dramatically altered appearance that has become one of the trailer’s immediate talking points. Penélope Cruz co-stars as a powerful figure connected to the criminal plot surrounding the pair.
The trailer presents the film as a glossy but violent thriller built around shifting loyalties, hidden identities and a sense that the central characters know far less about one another than they initially assume. Rather than positioning Depp as a familiar eccentric hero, the footage leans into uncertainty about Kelly’s intentions and the consequences of Lorna allowing him into her world.
Day Drinker is also notable because it reunites Depp and Cruz, who have shared the screen several times over the course of their careers. Their past collaborations include Blow, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Murder on the Orient Express. The new project places them in a darker contemporary story while adding Cline, one of the most recognizable performers to emerge from Netflix’s Outer Banks, to the center of the action.
The film arrives during a period of renewed activity for Depp. He is also starring as Ebenezer Scrooge in Ebenezer, another major theatrical project scheduled for November 2026. Together, the two movies represent a more visible return to commercial studio releases after several years in which much of Depp’s screen work was outside the traditional Hollywood mainstream.
For Lionsgate, the combination of an established global star, a younger streaming-era lead and a director with experience in both blockbuster and character-driven filmmaking gives Day Drinker a wide marketing lane. Webb is known for projects ranging from 500 Days of Summer to The Amazing Spider-Man films, and the new trailer suggests a production that is trying to balance character tension with international crime-thriller spectacle.
The cast also includes Manu Ríos, Arón Piper, Juan Diego Botto and Anika Boyle. Their involvement reinforces the film’s international flavor, while the yacht setting and coastal imagery give the story a polished surface that contrasts with the threat implied by its criminal underworld.
The first trailer is designed more to establish atmosphere than to explain every turn of the plot, which may work in the film’s favor. The central question is not simply what Kelly is hiding, but how Lorna becomes entangled in the conflict around him and what role Cruz’s character will play as those secrets come into the open. With its March 2027 release date now set, Day Drinker has begun the longer campaign that will determine whether Depp’s renewed studio presence translates into a significant theatrical comeback.
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