“Pirates of the Caribbean 6″ is looking to get weird, according to co-screenwriter Craig Mazin.
The “Last of Us” showrunner and “Pirates 6” scribe told The Los Angeles Times that the franchise installment he wrote with “Pirates” staple screenwriter Ted Elliott was almost “too weird” for Walt Disney Co.
“We pitched it and thought there’s no way they’re buying it, it’s too weird,” Mazin said. “And they did! And then he wrote a fantastic script and the strike happened and everyone’s waiting around.”
The most recent “Pirates” film, “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” premiered in 2017. The sixth franchise installment is believed to be set with the original characters; however, there is no word yet if Johnny Depp will be back as Jack Sparrow.
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer first said in May 2022 that Depp will not return “at this point” amid Depp’s defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard following her abuse allegations. By December 2022 and following Depp’s legal win, Bruckheimer said he would “love” to see Depp star in the sixth movie.
“I would love to have him in the movie. He’s a friend, a terrific actor, and it’s unfortunate that personal lives creep into everything we do,” Bruckheimer said, adding that it is however up to Disney. “You’d have to ask them. I can’t answer that question. I really don’t know.”
Bruckheimer confirmed that the character of Jack Sparrow would also never be killed off. “You can’t,” he said. “We tried to kill him. It didn’t work.”
A female-led “Pirates” spin-off and rumored reboot was also in the works, with Margot Robbie attached to star and produce through her LuckyChap banner. The slated script was written by Robbie’s “Birds of Prey” screenwriter Christina Hodson. Yet after its 2020 announcement, Robbie told Vanity Fair that the project was seemingly dead at Disney.
“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 said in November 2022.
Producer Bruckheimer soon thereafter assured that the Robbie-led film will “come forward at a certain point” but that Disney was focusing on the Mazin-penned project first.
