Johnny Depp Day Drinker Trailer: Gray Hair, Crime, March 26

Lionsgate dropped the first trailer for Day Drinker on September 24, and the first thing viewers will notice is Johnny Depp, nearly unrecognizable with long salt-and-pepper hair, a full beard and mustache, and bright blue contact lenses. InStyle covered the transformation the same day the Day Drinker trailer went live on Lionsgate's YouTube channel.

The action thriller comes from director Marc Webb, who made The Amazing Spider-Man, with a script by Zach Dean. Lionsgate has set a theatrical release of March 26, 2027, giving the studio a spring tentpole built around star power rather than a franchise. The date lands about six months after Depp appears as Ebenezer Scrooge in Ti West's Ebenezer, which ComingSoon lists among his major post-trial projects.

Depp plays Kelly, a mysterious day-drinking guest on a private yacht. Madelyn Cline plays Lorna, the bartender who crosses paths with him, and Penelope Cruz plays Cara Lazaro, a criminal figure. Their meeting pulls all three into a violent underworld they did not see coming, per the film's official synopsis reported by People.

What the trailer shows

The Day Drinker trailer opens with Depp at his most theatrical. "My story? Perhaps it's a tale of revenge. Or perhaps something worse. What if all of this is a ghost story? Or maybe I'm just another day drinker," his character says in voiceover, a line that has already become the trailer's signature moment on social media. He is seen getting arrested and thrown to the ground, and the footage cuts between scenes of him cornered by men with axes and guns.

People notes that Depp's character appears to be an Australian man, and the trailer leaves open whether something supernatural is going on. The Day Drinker trailer footage also shows him holding a locket with a photo that looks like him with a wife and child, followed by a shot of a woman sinking in water. Cruz enters as the threat that binds the three characters together.

Webb has said that Cline is "the pivotal emotional center of the movie," adding, "I needed somebody who could embrace a kind of pathos and give the movie a heart. And Maddie is very good at that," as reported by ComingSoon. The director described her role as the one the audience will latch onto as the story turns darker.

According to Hypebeast, Depp and Cruz both spent 2026 appearing in independent productions, including La Bola Negra, The Invite, and Bunker, before circling back to a studio release. ComingSoon describes the film as one of Depp's major Hollywood comeback projects since the 2022 defamation trial, alongside the Christmas fantasy Ebenezer, which reaches theaters this November.

Depp's return to studio movies

People reports that Day Drinker will be Depp's second film from a major distributor since Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2018. After his widely publicized 2022 defamation trial, he starred in the French film Jeanne du Barry, which opened the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, and he directed Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness. In November, he plays Ebenezer Scrooge in Ti West's Ebenezer.

The film is also the fourth big-screen team-up for Depp and Cruz, after Blow (2001), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), and Murder on the Orient Express (2017). The ensemble includes Manu Rios, Aron Piper, Juan Diego Botto, and Anika Boyle. Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Adam Kolbrenner, Zach Dean, and Nathan Kahane produced, per Hypebeast.

For Gen Z viewers, Cline may be the main draw. The 28-year-old wrapped Netflix's Outer Banks, and Day Drinker is her first major film project since, according to Hypebeast. Her casting against Depp and Cruz puts her in front of audiences who know her mostly from streaming.

The Day Drinker trailer is available on Lionsgate's YouTube channel for anyone who wants to pause on the details. Fans who want to compare it with other recent trailers can watch the Madden movie trailer breakdown or the new Verity trailer story. Read People's full Day Drinker trailer coverage and InStyle's look at Depp's salt-and-pepper transformation.