Pirates of the Caribbean may be swashbuckling back onto screens in the near future, although this time without their infamous lead buccaneer.
The series’ producer Jerry Bruckheimer has said that he plans to “reboot” the $4.5 billion (€4.2 billion) franchise in an interview with ComicBook.com and alluded to not relying on the return of controversial actor Johnny Depp as lead character Captain Jack Sparrow.
The 80-year-old producer was asked about a new Pirates film alongside a third film in another of his mega successes, Top Gun.
“You just don’t know,” Bruckheimer said. “Because with Top Gun you have an actor who is iconic and brilliant. And how many movies he does before he does Top Gun, I can’t tell you. But we’re gonna reboot Pirates, so that is easier to put together because you don’t have to wait for certain actors.”
Bruckheimer had already confirmed in 2022 that Depp wouldn’t have hands on deck for a sixth entry into the franchise.
After the fifth and most recent film Dead Men Tell No Tales in 2017, Depp was embroiled in a controversial libel trial with his ex-wife actor Amber Heard. The 2022 trial dominated the media as Depp successfully won a case against Heard for publishing an account in the Washington Post that alleged a man had sexually abused her.
Despite his victory in the US trial – Depp lost a similar libel lawsuit against Heard in the UK – the actor has become a pariah in Hollywood ever since. During the trial, Depp and Heard were quizzed about the actor’s potential return to the Pirates series.
“The fact is, Mr. Depp, if Disney came to you with $300 million and a million alpacas, nothing on this earth would get you to go back and work with Disney on a Pirates of the Caribbean film? Correct?,” Heard’s lawyer Ben Rottenborn asked him. “That is true, Mr. Rottenborn,” he responded.
Although the Pirates series has been commercially viable, it has dwindled in critical status since its original outing in 2003. The one consistent linchpin of the series has always been Depp’s presence as the drunken-footed sailor Captain Jack Sparrow.
However, plans have been floated for some time of new films in the franchise. In 2020, it was reported that two films were in the works. A sixth entry to the series written by Craig Mazin (‘The Last of Us’, ‘Chernobyl’) and Pirates stalwart Ted Elliott, as well as a reboot led by Margot Robbie and penned by Christina Hodson (Birds of Prey).
In 2022, Robbie said that her female reboot version had been dropped, and Bruckheimer confirmed the studio was prioritising Mazin and Elliott’s script.
