Fans have never quite reconciled with the fact that Disney unceremoniously booted Johnny Depp from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, especially when two new projects were entered into development shortly afterwards.
No offense to Birds of Prey duo Margot Robbie and Christina Hodson, but if box office takings and reviews were both cratering when Captain Jack Sparrow was still at the helm of the swashbuckling series, then removing the brand’s biggest selling point and most marketable figure from the equation may only serve to make things worse.
The latest revelation to emerge from the courtroom during Depp’s defamation trial opposite Amber Heard saw the fallen star admit that he was once set to co-write Pirates of the Caribbean 6, but instead he was discarded without getting the chance to say goodbye to Jack and his millions of fans.
“I didn’t quite understand how after that long relationship and quite a successful relationship, certainly for Disney, that suddenly I was guilty until proven innocent… I, in fact, had been approached to take part in writing Pirates 6… my feeling was that these characters should be able to have their proper goodbye, as it were. A franchise can only last for so long, and there’s a way to end a franchise like that. And I thought that the characters deserved… to end their franchise on a very good note. I planned on continuing until it was time to stop.”
If and when the current iteration of Pirates 6 makes it to the big screen (should it actually get that far), then the movie faces a near-insurmountable task convincing the skeptics that it’s worth their time when Depp has been cast out of a series that was beginning to sink as it was.