Yo ho boo hoo

You don't have the picture of the kids "fruit" gummies with Cap'n Jack! I'm hoping it was the Disney sell out, not Johnny. Once he's done with the film, they can pretty much do whatever they want with those particular images, right? I hope... please tell me I'm right.

Well I know nothing about Johnny's contract, but I'm gonna guarantee you that, yeah, it was Disney. He could go ahead and make Johnny Depp Flakes, but Pirates cereal is definitely Disney's property. Hell, Pixar didn't even have the rights to Toy Story. Before they just bought Pixar, Disney was planning to (god help us) make Toy Story 3 on their own. How horrible would that have been?

Yeah, Disney has the rights to *Pirates OTC,* but I doubt they can just splash Depp's face over whatever they want without his approval. I hope his arm was twisted or something. That's the only way I can bear to think of this.

It would all depend on the contracts. Most "boilerplate" contracts would grant a blanket license to use an actor's likeness for any and all promotional purposes. I think it was more or less a non-issue before Star Wars showed how much potential money there was in licensing. But nowadays an actor with clout might be able to successfully negotiate restrictions on those rights and/or get more money or other concessions for granting likeness rights... if he cares. But the "default" star contract still probably allows for all manner of likeness exploitation without the star's specific knowledge or approval. And for that matter, Johnny Depp might still be under a multi-picture contract he signed *before* the first movie became the hit that increased his box-office clout.