According to superproducer Jerry Bruckheimer, the controversial American actor is in talks to reprise the role of Captain Jack Sparrow in a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie – a deal that would herald a full-on Hollywood comeback for Depp after half a decade in the cinematic wilderness. During court proceedings in 2022, Depp testified that Disney had dropped him from the Pirates franchise, claiming that he would refuse to rejoin the series even if he were offered “$300m and a million alpacas”. While it’s not known how much money – or indeed how many alpacas – Disney may or may not be willing to offer him, the assumption among many is that a return could be very much on the cards. (Orlando Bloom, who fronted the original Pirates trilogy in the 2000s alongside Depp and Keira Knightley, hinted last year that he was interested in a reboot.) Talk of a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film comes weeks after the first trailer debuted for Depp’s other “comeback” project, an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
The film, out later this year, isn’t Depp’s first foray into cinema since his highly publicised, career-derailing legal battle with ex-wife Amber Heard, but it is his first back in the Hollywood system. While no one but the Ghost of Christmas Future can be sure of Ebenezer’s fortunes, Bruckheimer’s comments are the strongest suggestion yet that studios are ready to re-embrace Depp. Back in the shabby pirate garb of Captain Jack, Depp would be reprising the biggest role of his career.
It seems that studios are ready to start betting on it. For Depp, a sixth Pirates film would be a return to the franchise that made him a bankable blockbuster star after spending years struggling to crack the mainstream. As shambling, sauntering pirate-with-a-heart-of-gold Jack Sparrow, Depp created for himself an inimitable breakout character; audiences loved him, and so did critics. (It was Pirates that won Depp his first Oscar nomination.) The magnitude and turbulence of Depp’s 21st-century fame make it easy to forget that he started out as a teen pin-up, thanks to his role in the TV hit 21 Jump Street – and Hollywood success was initially elusive.
The 1980s and 1990s saw him work with a slew of lauded filmmakers – among them Wes Craven (in Depp’s debut film, the horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street), John Waters (in Cry-Baby), and Terry Gilliam (in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). He produced much of his best work in collaboration with Tim Burton – as the Chaplinesque monster in Edward Scissorhands, and the titular schlock filmmaker in Ed Wood. Many of these films, however, were box office bombs.
Depp was an actor with arthouse cachet, but no mainstream bankability; he was arguably best known at the time for his string of glamorous off-camera romances (with actors including Jennifer Grey, Sherilyn Fenn and Winona Ryder, and the model Kate Moss). Dreamy France-set romance Chocolat was another success the following year, making $152.7m, more than six times its budget. New subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial.
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