ANAHEIM, Cali. - Reporters spoke with American film and television producer Jerry Bruckheimer at Disney’s biennial D23 event about Depp’s possible return to the movie screen in the new Pirates movie.
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“[When it comes to ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 6′] we’re talking with Johnny [Depp]," Bruckheimer told Deadline media. “We’re working on a screenplay, and hopefully we can get this done.”
Depp has been out of the Hollywood limelight following his high-profile 2022 legal trial against his former wife, Amber Heard.
The jury in the 2022 trial ruled in Depp’s favour, finding that Heard had defamed her ex-husband in a Washington Post editorial in which she said she “became a public figure representing domestic abuse.”
READ: Johnny Depp returns in Dior Sauvage commercial; first ad since Amber Heard trial
Deadline also stated that the new film won’t feel like just the nth tale of Captain Jack Sparrow. Instead, the next installment will focus on Margot Robbie’s protagonist with Sparrow as a side character.
The last Pirates of the Caribbean, 2017’s Dead Men Tell No Tales, was the lowest grossing in the franchise with $795 million worldwide. Through five movies, the Disney live-action franchise has generated $4.5 billion at the global box office.
Jerry Bruckheimer reveals conversations have been had with Johnny Depp about returning as Captain Jack Sparrow in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 6’ | #D23 pic.twitter.com/52iJn7apD1
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) August 16, 2026
Depp did say in 2022 that Disney had dropped him from the series and he would not play Sparrow again even if he were offered “$300 million and a million alpacas,” according to the Guardian.
Depp first appeared as Captain Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003, and it has become one of his most recognisable roles.
Taking its name and pirate setting from a ride at the Disney World theme park, the swashbuckling film also featured Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush, and grossed more than $650 million at the worldwide box office.
Four sequels followed between 2006 and 2017, and it was the first franchise to produce two films that each made more than $1 billion.
However, Depp has had legal issues since then, which have affected his career. The defamation trial against Heard in the US was preceded in 2020 by a libel lawsuit he brought in the UK after the Sun newspaper characterised him as a “wife-beater;” the court found the characterisation was “substantially true.”
After this verdict, Depp was asked by Warner Bros. to resign from the Fantastic Beasts franchise, when shooting on a third film had already begun.
Depp is set to make a film comeback when he plays Scrooge in Ebenezer directed by Ti West, due to be released in the UK and US in November.
READ: Photos: ‘Ebenezer’ Johnny Depp appears at Comic-Con
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