The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has gone way past its peak, and five movies in, they are still banking on the popularity of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. With the character seemingly running its course on the big screen though, fans were ready to accept that PotC was moving forward without him—and producer Jerry Bruckheimer may have just confirmed this.
Talking to ComicBook.com while promoting the release of Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Bruckheimer explains:
“It’s hard to tell. You don’t know, you really don’t know… 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. But we’re gonna reboot Pirates, so that is easier to put together because you don’t have to wait for certain actors.”
No doubt Bruckheimer could be talking about Depp, but seeing as the actor has been the center of a public feud with Amber Heard, I can imagine that he doesn’t have too many huge projects lined up.
It’s also worth noting that the term ‘reboot’ has a bit of a loose meaning nowadays. Is the Pirates reboot going to be a full top-to-bottom reboot like the all-woman Ghostbusters from 2016? Or is it going to be a ‘legacy’ reboot like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Ghostbusters: Afterlife?
Admittedly, the Jack Sparrow character is lightning in a bottle, but I would be excited to see if someone could come up with a new version of the character, or at least something in the same spirit, in a rebooted Pirates movie.
Until Disney reveals some more details, we’ll just have to wait. In the meantime, the next Pirates of the Caribbean film is yet to receive a release date.
