Jerry Bruckheimer Says Two New Pirates of the Caribbean Movies Likely

Movies

If Jerry Bruckheimer has his way, we’re going to have more Pirates of the Caribbean movies than you can shake an undead monkey at – just none with Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. An Entertainment Weekly exclusive reveals that Bruckheimer, who produces all of the films in the series (and many others over a tremendous career), expects Disney to greenlight two upcoming Pirates films. One is a reboot of the series, and the other is the “spin-off” starring Margot Robbie. (How a movie centered on a character and actress who weren’t in any of the other films can be called a spin-off, I have no idea; nobody’s being spun off.) The reboot is being written by Jeff Nathanson, who also wrote the last entry in the franchise, Dead Men Tell No Tales, as well as the live-action remake of The Lion King and its sequel/prequel Mufasa: The Lion King, Rush Hour 2 and Rush Hour 3, The Terminal, and Catch Me if You Can. This indicates that the previously announced screenwriters, Craig Marzin and Ted Elliott (the latter of whom wrote all the Pirates movies that Jeff Nathanson didn’t), are off the film. The Margot Robbie Pirates movie was written by Christina Hodson, who wrote Birds of Prey, The Flash, and Bumblebee; if that doesn’t have “winner” written all over it, I don’t know what does. From Bruckheimer’s statement to Entertainment Weekly, it sounds like the reboot is a go at Disney, but he stresses that they “really want to make the Margot one, too.”

The only good thing about these movies getting made is how funny it’ll be when they bomb. Nobody wants to see Pirates of the Caribbean without Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow; I don’t usually like to make absolute statements, but this is an exception. Bruckheimer even talks about how Depp made those movies in the article. I feel bad for Bruckheimer, in a way; the animosity between Depp and Disney isn’t his fault, but he’s the one who has to deal with the fallout. I get the impression he doesn’t really want to do it without Depp, but they’re going to get made one way or the other, so he’s trying to steer them as best he can. I mean, look at the faint praise he’s giving the reboot; he talks about how great the third act is while admitting the first two need a lot of work. And the Margot Robbie movie sounds like an even bigger disaster, if only because of the screenwriter; at least The Terminal and Catch Me if You Can were great movies, so Jeff Nathanson can write well under certain circumstances. (Although Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks probably helped.) What’s the best thing Christina Hodson has done? Probably either Bumblebee (which I didn’t say because I’m not into Transformers) or one of two small thrillers I forgot existed that have even lower IMDb scores than her trashy DC films. And in the current entertainment climate, replacing Johnny Depp with a woman feels like it’s being done on purpose to make a statement. It’s too bad because I would have loved to have seen Margot Robbie in a real Pirates of the Caribbean movie – “real” meaning one starring Depp as Captain Jack. But this is Disney’s fault, and they deserve to lose all the money these two films are going to cost them.