Disney have two new Pirates of the Caribbean movies in the works, one of which hails from longtime scribes Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and is set to be directed by Dead Men Tell No Tales‘ Joachim Ronning, who’ll be flying solo without regular filmmaking partner Espen Sandberg, while the other is a female-driven spinoff from Birds of Prey duo Margot Robbie and Christina Hodson.
From almost the second that both projects were announced, though, fans were furious that an actor to have appeared in all five installments so far had been dropped altogether despite being such an integral part of the mythology ever since 2003’s Curse of the Black Pearl. You can completely understand the backlash, too, because having always played a key role in a series that’s raked in over $4.5 billion at the box office, there are plenty of reasons to doubt whether or not audiences will show up in the same kind of numbers when Kevin McNally’s Joshamee Gibbs is nowhere to be found.
Of course, there’s also the the barely publicized matter of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow, who was first booted from Pirates of the Caribbean two years ago, and in the meantime his star has only fallen further. The 57 year-old is about as close to radioactive as it gets in Hollywood according to several insiders, and Disney reportedly shot down the idea put forward by producer Jerry Bruckheimer to have him cameo in one of the upcoming swashbucklers.
The petition to have Depp reinstated continues to gather steam, though, and has now crossed 350,000 signatures, but just like the one to have him brought back as Fantastic Beasts 3‘s Grindelwald or the other one demanding Amber Heard be fired from Aquaman 2, it isn’t going to change a single thing in the long run.