FADE IN:

EXT. TYPICAL GOTHIC BURTONIA

JOHNNY DEPP

Ah, how I enjoy being a happy-go-lucky old-timey Englishman, in love and looking forward to a life of innocent bliss! I sure hope some jealous psycho doesn't have me imprisoned for-

(checks script)

Whoops, I'm doing Sweeney Todd. Should I start over?

DIRECTOR TIM BURTON

Now Johnny, you know my Golden Rule when it comes to scripts.

JOHNNY DEPP

"Who gives a shit". Right, silly me.

EVA GREEN

Oh, how I obsessively love you, Johnny!

JOHNNY DEPP

I, er, love SOMEBODY. Will that do?

EVA GREEN

Grr, if I can't have you, I must destroy you! To begin with, I murder your parents and the woman you love, HA!

JOHNNY DEPP

In that case, I murder the man YOU love, who is me! Ha HA!

EVA GREEN

Nuh uh, I put a curse on you so that instead of dying you just turn into a vampire, ha ha HA!

JOHNNY DEPP

(smothered in fifteen pounds of white makeup)

VAMPIRES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY BLARGH!

A torch-wielding mob buries Johnny, but he gets out after TWO HUNDRED YEARS.

JOHNNY DEPP

Crap, I guess this means I've got to do all those tired old "man out of time" gags. Oh well. Gadzooks, a land dragon! A tiny woman in a flickering box! What manner of witchcraft and so on and so forth.

MICHELLE PFEIFFER

Welcome to the present, Johnny. And by the present, I mean forty years ago.

JOHNNY DEPP

The seventies, you say? Why? What impact does that have?

MICHELLE PFEIFFER

Eh, you know. Period clothes. The odd hippy. In terms of story and character, it's a completely meaningless distraction.

JOHNNY DEPP

So, exactly like That 70s Show. Gotcha.

MICHELLE PFEIFFER

Anyway, welcome back to Collinwood. I am your distant descendant, which is confusing because the prologue made it look like your entire family was wiped out.

JOHNNY DEPP

I mean to reinvigorate the family business, mainly by pointing out some hidden treasure and saying, "use that".

MICHELLE PFEIFFER

Excellent! In that case you may stay, only keep the vampire thing on the down-low, thanks.

JOHNNY DEPP

To that end I will act as weird as possible at all times, make no attempt to blend in and occasionally make explicit reference to having lived centuries ago.

MICHELLE PFEIFFER

Close enough. Come, meet the other members of the household, of whom there are a few more than strictly necessary.

CHLOE GRACE MORETZ

I'm Michelle's daughter. In an original move for a fictional teenage daughter, I am sullen and snarky.

GULLIVER MCGRATH

I'm Michelle's nephew. I'm Troubled, which will be mentioned constantly in dialogue to make up for the fact that I act completely normal throughout the film.

BELLA HEATHCOTE

(politely composed)

I'm Gulliver's nanny, and I see dead people. Specifically, I see the ghost of your dead love.

JOHNNY DEPP

Huh. Judging from your face, I would have guessed you were her, reincarnated.

BELLA HEATHCOTE

(politely composed)

I think I might be that too? It's...confusing.

HELENA BONHAM CARTER

I'm Gulliver's doctor. Also a surly drunk, because if I go too long without playing a total bitch I FREAK OUT.

JOHNNY LEE MILLER

I serve no purpose in this movie. Feel free to forget I exist.

JACKIE EARL HALEY

I'm the groundskeeper, as well as your token Renfield-cum-Igor, although you don't really have me do anything. Mainly I'm here to be the creepiest-looking thing in the entire movie, as usual.

JOHNNY DEPP

Bah, I'll never remember all that. Let's go see about that family business, hm?

He REFURBISHES THE FAMILY CANNERY and BRAINWASHES AN HONEST OLD FISHERMAN.

JOHNNY DEPP

There we go. Business reinvigorated.

(pause)

Hm. I guess...we're just killing time now until the inevitable showdown with Eva.

(drums fingers)

All right, what subplots do we have?

MICHELLE PFEIFFER

"Sub...plots"?

JOHNNY DEPP

Yeah, they wouldn't have jammed in so many characters if you didn't all have your own stuff going on, right?

MICHELLE PFEIFFER

Mmmmmnope.

CHLOE GRACE MORETZ

Don't look at me, I got nothing.

JACKIE EARL HALEY

Sorry.

JOHNNY LEE MILLER

Literally the only noticeable thing I do in this movie is pack my bags and leave.

(slinks off, nobody cares)

JOHNNY DEPP

Oh come on, you can't all just be warm bodies for me to act goofy at. There's got to be more to this movie than that, surely. Troubled Kid, what have you got?

GULLIVER MCGRATH

Well, I see dead people. Specifically, I see the ghost of my dead mother.

BELLA HEATHCOTE

(politely composed)

Hey, fuck off and get your own paper-thin backstory.

GULLIVER MCGRATH

You fuck off! You've already got the whole falling-in-love-with-Johnny thing to set you apart.

BELLA HEATHCOTE

(politely composed)

Do I? Huh. My constant "hum de dum, waiting in line at the bank" facial expression kind of fails to get that across.

JOHNNY DEPP

For God's sake! Let's throw a party just to have SOMETHING happen.

CHLOE GRACE MORETZ

A party? As the one character allowed to make explicit seventies references, I advise you to get such party essentials as a mirror ball, and Alice Cooper!

JOHNNY DEPP

A mirror ball AND Alice Cooper? Because...this party will have multiple identity disorder?

They throw a party. The plot fails to advance at all while the audience gets a migraine trying to pretend ALICE COOPER is TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD.

JOHNNY DEPP

Goddammit Eva, can we have our fucking showdown already?!

EVA GREEN

Sorry, you've caught me in the "seduce" phase of my seduce/destroy cycle. Although we can still have a showdown...IN MY PANTS.

JOHNNY DEPP

No no no no! Okay sure!

Johnny abandons his entire character motivation just long enough for a slapstick sex scene.

JOHNNY DEPP

All right, that's over, back to normal. BEGONE YOU WANTON SHE-DEVIL!

EVA GREEN

Grr, if I can't have you, I must destroy you!

(checks watch)

But not quite yet. Fill in another twenty minutes or so and get back to me.

JOHNNY DEPP

Gnar, how else can we pad out the time? Oh, Helena, you're fucking the director, surely you got something resembling a plotline.

HELENA BONHAM CARTER

Okay, it turns out I'm hot for you despite - perhaps even partly because of - your monstrous tendencies. But, I'm also secretly betraying you!

JOHNNY DEPP

I KILL YOU FOR THAT!

HELENA BONHAM CARTER

(checks script)

Wait, no, that's Sweeney Todd again. Sorry.

DIRECTOR TIM BURTON

Seriously guys, as long as everything continues to look pretty, I couldn't care less what you do or say.

JOHNNY DEPP

Alrighty then!

(kills Helena)

EVA GREEN

Wait, that was almost a plot point. Story mode reactivated! Say Johnny, isn't it curious how Helena "mysteriously disappeared", ahem hem.

JOHNNY DEPP

You got me. I spontaneously confess to her murder, as well as a bajillion other murders.

EVA GREEN

Bwa ha ha, BIG SURPRISE, I secretly taped that confession! Won't you be horrified when I expose you to the whole town!

(pause)

Well, no, you won't, because I'm going to bury you again first and you won't even ever know about it.

(pause)

And by "bury you" I mean stash your coffin in an above-ground crypt that anyone can just walk into.

(pause)

Seriously, I've had the whole movie to think of something, and this is the best I came up with.

She does this, and Johnny gets out in about five seconds. He then goes to the middle of town where Eva has exploded his cannery and is playing his confession tape to everybody.

EVA GREEN

Hear that five seconds of out-of-context audio that I promise you is Johnny Depp talking? The Collins family has been harboring an active mass murderer for their own financial gain!

JOHNNY DEPP

HOW DARE YOU SPREAD SUCH SLANDER?! Or, not so much slander as perfectly accurate allegations which are every bit as bad as they sound.

POLICE CHIEF

Okay, arrest the entire Collins family! I guess I mean the kids too? I haven't thought this through.

But then JOHNNY AND EVA START FIGHTING! FUCKING FINALLY!

EVA GREEN

Grr, if I can't have you, I must destroy you!

JOHNNY DEPP

Oh Jesus fuck, could you stop establishing that?! We get it already!

EVA GREEN

Give me a break here, that's all the characterisation I get.

They SMASH EACH OTHER ACROSS THE ROOM A BUNCH, which might mean something if they won't both clearly MADE OF ADAMANTIUM.

CHLOE GRACE MORETZ

Hey, I want in on this fight too! I'm a werewolf, rawr!

MICHELLE PFEIFFER

A werewolf?! Of course! This explains...um, nothing whatsoever. Kinda pulled this one out of our asses, really.

CHLOE GRACE MORETZ

At least killing Eva gives me a reason to be in this movie at all!

(is hit, falls down, cries)

GULLIVER MCGRATH

God, everybody sucks. Looks like it's all down to my Ghost Mom, who apparently can physically attack people but chose not to until after Eva had already destroyed our business, our home and our reputation!

The Ghost Mom THROWS EVA AT A CHANDELIER.

EVA GREEN

Hurk, this arbitrarily exceeds the limits of my ill-defined indestructibility! Dead now!

(dies)

PS, Johnny, I bewitched Bella to throw herself off a cliff. This too was meant to happen after I already buried you forever. My plans are so fucking confusing.

Johnny rushes to the cliff and GRABS BELLA just before she jumps! Or, to be more accurate, STOPS TEN FEET AWAY FROM HER while she's on the edge, and WATCHES HER JUMP AND DIE like a PUTZ. Or actually, she DOESN'T JUMP, she just sort of STOPS and STANDS THERE like she's in no hurry at all.

JOHNNY DEPP

Bella, don't jump, pretty please! Yes, I'm trying to talk you out of being magically brainwashed.

BELLA HEATHCOTE

(politely composed)

Eh, I might as well jump, since I couldn't truly be with you unless you made me immortal too.

JOHNNY DEPP

I would never force you to experience my curse!

Bella JUMPS.

JOHNNY DEPP

Whoops, scratch that!

He leaps after her and turns her before she hits the rocks.

BELLA HEATHCOTE

(politely composed)

Tada, now I'm your old love and not Bella! Or both at the same time! Or maybe we've always been the same person! It's very unclear. Important thing is, now that you've made me a vampire to save my life, we can finally be together forever!

(pause)

Oh, crap. You got Twilight in my Burton!

JOHNNY DEPP

You got Burton in my Twilight!

BELLA HEATHCOTE

(politely composed)

Two stupid tastes that taste stupid together!

END.