Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, has provided a startling update on its future.
The 80-year-old Hollywood hotshot producer, who has worked on huge smash films such as Armageddon, Top Gun, Con Air, and the Bad Boys flicks starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, has stated that the Disney-owned project is still on track.
After a series of ambiguous updates in recent years, including conjecture over whether or not original actor Johnny Depp will return as Captain Jack Sparrow – the role that catapulted him to superstardom – Bruckheimer said that future Pirates films will have a new cast.
This may or may not coincide with discussions in 2022 of a female-led take starring Barbie star Margot Robbie.
Discussing the new movie. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, along with director Guy Ritchie, asked Bruckheimer which was more likely to happen first: a third Top Gun film following the huge success of 2022’s sequel Top Gun: Maverick, or a sixth Pirates film, seven years after the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
‘It’s hard to tell. You don’t know, you really don’t know,’ Bruckheimer began, initially hesitant in his answer.
He continued to ComicBook.com: ‘You don’t know how they come together. You just don’t know. 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.’
The producer is, of course, referring to star Tom Cruise, who is now wrapping up production on the eighth installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise following delays caused by last year’s actors strike.
He also intends to visit to space to film a movie that was revealed back in 2020.
Bruckheimer offered a more definite update on his nautical, swashbuckling series, explaining: ‘But we’re going to relaunch Pirates, so that is simpler to put together since you don’t have to wait for particular stars.’
Because of the massive success of Barbie last year, Oscar contender Robbie may be out of the running onscreen due to a busy schedule, but she might still be offering her producing skills to the movie, as Emerald Fennell’s much-discussed social thriller Saltburn suggests.
After Robbie claimed Disney had abandoned her remake proposal in December 2022, Bruckheimer asserted it was still ‘alive’.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Bruckheimer confirmed then that the project was ‘alive for me, it’s alive for Disney.’
He said the team was developing two Pirates movies – ‘one with Margot Robbie and one with younger cast.’
Jerry explained: ‘The Margot Robbie one needs a little more work. The younger cast one is close. Hopefully we’ll get both of them.’
The producer, who worked on all five previous Pirates movies, insisted: ‘We believe we’ll get it made. It’s a very strong story.’
So it sounds like the ‘younger’ one will be the one to approach us first.
Former Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production president Sean Bailey said in June last year that the corporation had not ruled out bringing actor Johnny Depp, 60, back to the film series.
Addressing the possibility of the Pirates franchise making a return, with the last film released in 2017, Bailey said: ‘We think we have a really good, exciting story that honours the films that have come before but also has something new to say.’
The studio head added to The New York Times that Depp was ‘noncommittal at this point’ when asked if the actor could return, but did deny that they could welcome him back themselves.
Depp has made his feelings on the film series clear in the past and stated that ‘nothing on this earth’, not even ‘$300million (£237.5m) and a million alpacas’, could entice him to appear in another instalment.
Despite Bruckheimer previously stating that he, too, would want to see the three-time Oscar nominee return in his bandana, it looks that this new information has eliminated that option.
