Jerry Bruckheimer has shared that he’s interested in having Johnny Depp reprise his iconic role of Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise soon. While the producer said that “you’d have to ask” the actor if he would play the character again in another movie, Bruckheimer told The Hollywood Reporter that he would “love” to have Depp return to the franchise.
While also speaking about whether Disney would allow Depp to star in a sixth entry in the series during the interview, the Oscar-winning producer said: “You’d have to ask them. I can’t answer that question. I really don’t know.”
But Bruckheimer added: “I would love to have [Depp] in the movie. He’s a friend, a terrific actor, and it’s unfortunate that personal lives creep into everything we do.”
The Golden Globe-winning filmmaker also confirmed that the character of Jack Sparrow would also never be killed off in the screen adaptation. “You can’t,” he said. “We tried to kill him. It didn’t work.”
This past May, Bruckheimer also said that while two Pirates of the Caribbean scripts were in development at the time – one of which would star Margot Robbie in the lead role – Depp wouldn’t be back “at this point.” The statement came amid the Golden Globe-winning actor’s defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife, Amber Heard; he has since won the case.
Depp said during the trial that he hoped to play Jack Sparrow again in the feature film series that launched almost 20 years ago, with the 2003 entry, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Depp received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jack Sparrow in the franchise starter.
“My feeling was that these characters should be able to have their proper goodbye, as it were,” the actor said. “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 have their way out, to end the franchise on a very good note. I planned on continuing until it was time to stop.”
Besides Depp, Robbie has also commented on the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series recently. The Oscar-nominated actress stated that her planned installment in the franchise has been scrapped, after it was in development for almost two years.
“We had an idea, and we were developing it for a while, ages ago, to have more of a female-led – not totally female-led, but just a different kind of story – which we thought would’ve been really cool, but I guess they don’t want to do it,” Robbie told Vanity Fair.
But Bruckheimer countered the actress’s statement about her planned entry in the series. He insisted: “It’s alive for me. It’s alive for Disney.” He added: “I’m sure [Robbie] was disappointed it didn’t go first — or maybe not because she’s very busy, so it might be a blessing to push this a bit. We believe we’ll get it made. It’s a very strong story.”
The Emmy-winning producer further commented on the two Pirates of the Caribbean films that are reportedly in development by sharing his hope that they both move forward: “We developed two of them – the one with Margot Robbie and one with a younger cast. The Margot Robbie one needs a little more work. The younger cast one is close. Hopefully we’ll get both of them.”