The Pirates of the Caribbean film series has been stasis since the release of 2017’s Dead Men Tell No Tales, which earned primarily negative critical reception and only managed to gross more than Entry #1, 2003’s The Curse of the Black Pearl. Though Disney has no plans to bring Johnny Depp back into the Pirates fold (and the actor’s not interested in doing that anyway, though he will channel Jack Sparrow for the fans), the Mouse House has been exploring several ways to revive the film series, including a spinoff led by Margot Robbie. Although Robbie herself indicated last month the spinoff wasn’t moving forward, here’s good news for fans of the actress: the latest update is that it might not be completely dead after all.
In November, Margot Robbie said that it appeared that Disney wasn’t interested in taking the Pirates of the Caribbean spinoff that she’d been working on with Birds of Prey writer Christina Hodson to the next stage. However, Jerry Bruckheimer, who’s produced all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, informed Collider that there’s still a chance this project could get off the ground someday, saying:
I think that that script will come forward at a certain point. We developed two different stories for Pirates and the other one’s going forward first, so that’s what we’re working on, to try to get that one made.
The other story Jerry Bruckheimer is referring to is likely Pirates of the Caribbean 6, i.e. another entry in the main film series rather than a spinoff. As the producer sees it though, this isn’t one of those cases where a script has been permanently shelved. There's a possibility the day will come when Margot Robbie’s spinoff is revisited, but for now, Disney would rather focus on the other Pirates project to get this franchise ball rolling again. If/when that happens, then the studio might take another look at putting together a cinematic tale where Robbie gets to play a swashbuckler sailing the high seas.
Although Pirates of the Caribbean 6 was originally intended to be a direct follow-up to Dead Men Tell No Tales, following the latter movie’s underwhelming performance and Johnny Depp not returning as Jack Sparrow, it’s unclear what direction the movie will now take. Deadpool duo Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were once working on the script, but they left in Pirates 6 in early 2019. Later that same year, it was announced that Craig Main and Ted Elliot were the new writers, with the latter having previously penned all of the Pirates movies except for Dead Men Tell No Tales. This past August, Jerry Bruckheimer said that he’s “excited” for Pirates 6 and thinks it will be “terrific,” so hopefully we finally get a concrete update in 2023 about where things specifically stand with the project.
Until then, you can stream all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies with your Disney+ subscription. As for Margot Robbie, she most recently starred in Amsterdam, which HBO Max subscribers will be able to stream starting December 6, and she’ll return to theaters later this month for Babylon.
