Johnny Depp in character as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchisePirates Of The Caribbean producer Jerry Bruckheimer has claimed that he is currently in negotiations with Johnny Depp to get him to return to the franchise.
Over the weekend, Bruckheimer appeared at Disney’s annual D23 fan event, where updates are given about the company’s films, theme parks and other major projects.
During the event, Pirates Of The Caribbean’s lead producer confirmed to Deadline that he was “talking with Johnny” about getting him to play the role of Captain Jack Sparrow again.
“We’re working on a screenplay, and hopefully we can get this done,” he added.
HuffPost UK has contacted Johnny Depp’s team for comment.
Last year, Bruckheimer made similar claims, telling Entertainment Weekly that he’d been in contact with Depp about coming back as Jack Sparrow.
“If he likes the way the part’s written, I think he would do it,” he said, adding: “It’s a reboot, but if it was up to me, he would be in it. I love him. He’s a good friend.”
“He created Captain Jack,” Bruckheimer added at the time. “That was not on the page; that was him doing a little Pepé Le Pew and Keith Richards. That was his interpretation of Jack Sparrow.”
It should be noted, though, that after testifying in his infamous 2022 court case, Depp insisted he would not even accept an offer of “$300 million and a million alpacas” to reprise his role in a future Pirates Of The Caribbean film, after claiming Disney had dropped him from the franchise years earlier.
Depp has been a controversial figure ever since 2016, when his ex-wife Amber Heard alleged during their divorce proceedings that he had been abusive towards her in their marriage, which he denied at the time.
The two later reached a settlement and issued a joint statement, which read: “Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm.”
In 2019, Depp took legal action against Heard, accusing her of defamation after she penned an opinion piece claiming that she had been a victim of domestic abuse, without mentioning anyone, including her famous ex-husband, by name.
After a very public court battle, a jury eventually found in 2022 that Heard had defamed Depp with the statements in her opinion piece.
Two years before that, Depp had also sued the publishers of The Sun newspaper over a piece describing him as a “wife-beater”.
However, the UK’s High Court Of Justice eventually ruled that the “great majority” of Heard’s allegations of abuse could be proven to the civil standard, and as a result The Sun’s description was “substantially true”.
Depp appealed this verdict, but the request was eventually denied.
While he has been largely out of the spotlight in recent history, he is due to take the lead in Ti West’s A Christmas Carol reimagining Ebeneezer later this year, co-starring Oscar nominee Andrea Riseborough, Harry Potter’s Rupert Grint, Emmy winner Tramell Tillman and acting legend Sir Ian McKellen.
