Back in 2003, when Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl first hit theaters, it was a pleasant surprise. A movie based on a Disney ride—in a time when pirate movies weren’t exactly riding high—it was highly entertaining, made a zillion dollars, and earned Johnny Depp his first Oscar nomination. Four sequels of varying quality followed, but despite many rumblings since Dead Men Tell No Tales in 2017, Pirates has yet to relaunch. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer is now saying there might be life left in the franchise with the now-controversial Depp back aboard—but is that something we should really be encouraging?
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Bruckheimer said Depp is open to a Captain Jack Sparrow return. That’s significant since Disney jettisoned the star in 2018 amid his legal drama with former wife Amber Heard; as EW notes, Depp said in court in 2022 that he would not be reprising the role because “there was a deep and distinct sense of feeling betrayed by the people that I’ve worked hard for.”
However, now there’s seemingly been a shift. “If he likes the way the part’s written, I think he would do it,” Bruckheimer told EW. “It’s all about what’s on the page, as we all know.”
Bruckheimer has previously described a potential sixth Pirates movie as a reboot. In 2022, amid discussions of Margot Robbie’s on-again, off-again take on the franchise—which he still had hopes for at that time—he sounded less optimistic about Depp making any sort of Pirates return someday. However, he did say, “The future has yet to be decided.”
That future is apparently here now, and Bruckheimer, who is clearly aware that any time he talks about Pirates he makes headlines, is floating that possibility anew. But even if someone writes the best Pirates reboot script ever, topping even the seaworthy hijinks of The Curse of the Black Pearl, do we really need Depp and his character to be shoehorned into it? Captain Jack Sparrow had already overstayed his welcome even before Depp’s personal troubles became headline fodder. Perhaps if there’s no chance of getting a Pirates movie without him, we should consider letting the idea sink to the bottom of the ocean forever.
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