Buried in Matthew Belloni’s Ebenezer scoop is a detail that reframes the entire Pirates of the Caribbean 6 situation.
Disney’s chosen lead still has not said yes.
Per Puck‘s Belloni, Margot Robbie has been attached to lead the movie since 2020, and in six years, three or four script iterations have failed to convince her to pull the trigger.
Four Scripts And No Commitment
Belloni reports Disney film chiefs Alan Bergman and David Greenbaum want to greenlight another Pirates of the Caribbean, with Johnny Depp if they can get him.
The holdup is not Depp. It is the star Disney insists on building the movie around.
1917 writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns is now working on a draft designed to keep Robbie front and center to her satisfaction while leaving room for Depp’s Jack Sparrow as a supporting character.
Jerry Bruckheimer confirmed the Depp side at D23, telling Deadline, “We’re talking with Johnny.”
Six Years Of Trying To Make Robbie’s Pirates Happen
Disney announced a female-led Pirates movie with Robbie and writer Christina Hodson back in June 2020, and fans rejected it on sight, with the petition to bring back Depp piling up hundreds of thousands of signatures.
By late 2022, Robbie herself was telling Vanity Fair the project was dead and that Disney seemed to have moved on.
Then Bruckheimer revived it, saying Robbie was still attached after the two competing scripts were seemingly combined into one.
In February, he debunked the Jack Sparrow’s son rumor and called it two different movies, right around the time Wilson-Cairns entered talks to write.
Then at D23, Deadline described the plan as a Margot Robbie movie with Jack Sparrow sidelined, and fans were tired of the playbook before the panel ended.
Now Belloni reveals the punchline: after all of it, Robbie still has not committed.
Disney Is Chasing The Wrong Yes
Here is the contrast Disney should be staring at.
The star Disney picked has passed on as many as four scripts.
The star fans picked just posted an 86 in Ebenezer test screenings, per Belloni, against a norm of 67 for a lead, with women over 35 rating him at 90 percent.
One of those two has the audience. One of those two keeps saying not yet.
Disney has spent six years and four scripts trying to manufacture enthusiasm for a version of Pirates nobody asked for, while the version everybody asked for sits right there waiting for a phone call.
As we said this week, Disney needs Depp far more than Depp needs Disney. Robbie’s four unsigned scripts are the proof.
Pirates of the Caribbean 6 does not have a release date.
