Disney Plus is adding an often overlooked Johnny Depp movie this week.
Among the new additions dropping on the Mouse House’s streaming service on Friday, December 18th is Into the Woods, the 2014 movie adaptation of the classic Stephen Sondheim stage musical. It did well at the time, but hasn’t had the prolonged life of other hit musicals from the last few years, so you may wish to check it out again once it becomes available to stream next weekend.
Into the Woods is a retelling of various famous fairy tales woven together, starring a packed cast of A-listers as revisionist takes on the mythical characters. The overarching story sees a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) forced to venture into the dark forest to collect spell ingredients for an evil witch (Meryl Streep). There, they encounter the likes of Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Prince Charming (Chris Pine) and Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy).
There’s also Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) who, sure enough, is visited by the Big Bad Wolf, played by Depp, in a scene-stealing turn as the zoot suit-wearing predator. The project reunited the actor with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides director Rob Marshall, while he’s also previously appeared in a Sondheim musical movie in 2007’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, in which he played the title role.
Despite it hailing from the Mouse House, be warned that Into the Woods is much darker than Disney’s usual fairy tales, with the story drawing closer to the original Brothers Grimm works as well as twisting a few of the happy endings. Meanwhile, on Rotten Tomatoes, it has a solid 71% critics score but only a 49% with audiences, which just shows that it’s not to everyone’s tastes.
See for yourself what you make of it, though, when the often forgotten Johnny Depp movie lands on Disney Plus this coming Friday.