Johnny Depp’s mysterious stranger arrives with alcohol, an axe and a warning in the first teaser for Day Drinker.
Lionsgate’s 1-minute-34-second teaser offers the first substantial footage from director Marc Webb’s new thriller, which also stars Madelyn Cline and Penélope Cruz. What initially looks like a glossy crime story aboard a private yacht quickly becomes something much harder to categorize, with revenge, death and possibly supernatural elements entering the picture.
And that uncertainty appears to be exactly what the teaser wants.
Johnny Depp’s character is hiding much more than his name
Depp appears with grey hair, a beard and a noticeably different look as the yacht’s mysterious guest.
He introduces himself less through plot exposition and more through attitude, talking about a lifetime of bad behaviour before suggesting his story could be about revenge—or something worse.
Then comes the teaser’s most interesting line:
“What if all of this is a ghost story?”
Depp follows it by wondering whether he is simply another “day drinker.”
It is an effective piece of misdirection because the official premise makes Day Drinker sound considerably more straightforward. Lionsgate says Madelyn Cline plays a bartender aboard a private yacht who encounters Depp’s mysterious passenger. The pair subsequently become involved with a criminal figure played by Cruz and discover that they are connected in unexpected ways.
The teaser makes that connection look considerably darker.
Images of violence, a dead or ghostly figure and characters behaving strangely suggest that Webb may be hiding another genre underneath the crime-thriller setup. BroadwayWorld even lists the movie as horror, although Lionsgate’s footage deliberately avoids confirming whether anything supernatural is actually happening.
For now, “ghost story” could be literal, psychological or simply Depp’s character describing a past he cannot escape.
Madelyn Cline may be more important than the teaser first suggests
Depp naturally gets the attention-grabbing moments, but Cline appears to be the audience’s real entry point into the mystery.
Additional descriptions of the film identify her character as a grieving yacht bartender who has lost her lover before encountering Depp’s stranger.
That detail changes several images in the teaser.
A fleeting moment involving Cline and a woman whose appearance becomes unsettling could be connected to that loss. It also makes the film’s repeated interest in ghosts, memory and revenge feel less random.
Rather than simply playing someone who accidentally meets a dangerous passenger, Cline’s character may already be carrying part of the mystery before Depp ever boards the yacht.
The teaser wisely refuses to explain the connection.
Penélope Cruz looks like the wild card
Cruz receives less context but some of the teaser’s strangest imagery.
Officially, her character is described only as a criminal figure who pulls Depp and Cline deeper into danger. Yet the footage gives her an almost supernatural presence at points, making it difficult to tell whether she is simply the antagonist or part of the larger mystery surrounding Depp’s revenge.
Day Drinker also reunites Depp and Cruz for their fourth film together after Blow, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Murder on the Orient Express.
Their latest collaboration looks very different from all three.
There is no obvious romance being sold between them this time. Instead, the teaser appears to position Cruz as someone connected to whatever happened before the movie begins.
That 19-second preview makes more sense now
Lionsgate actually started teasing Day Drinker one day earlier with an even shorter 19-second clip.
That preview showed tarot cards surrounded by candles before an axe crashed into the table. Depp could be heard threatening that he was not finished until he decided he was finished.
At the time, it mostly looked like stylish marketing.
After watching the full teaser, the tarot imagery feels more deliberate. Between the cards, apparent ghost imagery and Depp openly questioning whether his story is supernatural, Day Drinker seems interested in making viewers unsure whether they are watching a revenge thriller, horror movie or both.
That is a much stronger hook than simply selling Depp as a mysterious man drinking aboard an expensive yacht.
Marc Webb directs from a screenplay by Zach Dean, with John Wick producers Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee among the producing team. The supporting cast includes Manu Ríos, Arón Piper, Juan Diego Botto and Anika Boyle.
The teaser still leaves the most important questions unanswered: who exactly is Depp’s character seeking revenge against, what happened to Cline’s bartender, and why is Cruz connected to both of them?
For once, not knowing feels like the point.
Day Drinker opens in U.S. theaters on March 26, 2027.
