Johnny Depp's French Movie Was Not 'Pulled' from Theaters, Had Limited Run

Johnny Depp's new movie has been accused of being a stinker in terms of getting asses in seats -- and some have even claimed it's getting yanked because of that ... but it's BS.

Here's the deal ... there are social media posts floating around that suggest Johnny's film, "Jeanne du Barry," has been getting pulled from theaters here in the States -- particularly, ones in the Los Angeles area -- and the implication is that it's due to low ticket sales.

These tweets that are claiming JD's movie is grossly underperforming are attaching purported screenshots of empty theaters ... with only a seat or two filled for one-off showings last week.

As it turns out ... some outlets have even ran with it as gospel -- but TMZ has gotten to the bottom of it ... and we've learned things are not what they seem online. What else is new?

Sources with direct knowledge tell us "Jeanne du Barry" was always scheduled for a limited theater run here in SoCal -- a partnership with Fathom Events, which teamed up with the American distributors for 'JDB' to release the movie in a handful of cinemas around town.

In fact, this was announced a while ago ... back in March, Fathom said they'd be doing a mini run of screenings of the film -- which was only going to be from May 2 to May 6.

Now, as for how the movie actually performed during this window -- it varies a bit. There are folks saying they'd been to showings of 'Jeanne' that were full of people ... whereas others say they'd been to slightly emptier theaters. In any case, it wasn't released wide.

Remember, this movie is an indie flick that's completely in French -- so it's not a blockbuster by any means ... and was never meant to be a ticket-sale machine. It's a passion project of sorts ... and one of JD's first forays back into film after scoring a W in his defamation case.