With no fewer than two reboots of Disney’s Disney has two Pirates of the Caribbean reboot films in the works suggests that the franchise is continuing on without Depp's involvement, leaving fans to wonder what happened to the lovable rogue Jack Sparrow.
When producer Jerry Bruckheimer threw his immense clout behind a big-screen adaptation of the historic Disneyland attraction The Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney’s boardroom thought it was a terrible idea. Then-CEO Michael Eisner even tried to get the film shut down, deeming it a flop-in-waiting and questioning the veracity of adaptations of theme park rides following the commercial disaster of The Lord of the Rings that he eventually relented. Eisner, however, still had major reservations about the story, the budget, and the Keith Richards-esque performance of Johnny Depp, who he declared was ruining the movie.
2003's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl eventually became the fourth highest-grossing movie of that year, with just under $655 million to its name. That movie launched a five-film franchise that is currently the 14th highest-grossing film franchise of all time, ahead of Despicable Me. To this day, the Pirates movies are some of the most successful live-action titles Disney has ever released that weren't acquisitions or remakes. So, it's no wonder that they're so keen to reboot the franchise, not once but twice.
Johnny Depp is the undisputed star of the Pirates franchise, to the point where the filmmakers began to wholly mold the stories around the actor’s interpretation of Jack Sparrow, something that was never in the screenplay. The flipside of this decision, which did launch a successful series of movies, is that it limited the original scope of the story and the possibility to expand beyond Sparrow’s narrative.
The movies also became wildly expensive to produce. The fourth film, Marvel Cinematic Universe and a plethora of live-action remakes in their corner to make up the grosses.
If Disney wished to continue using Depp in the new Pirates movies, it would be reasonable (not to forget a whole lot more cost-effective) to include Sparrow in smaller cameos that the new stars. Sparrow works best as the agent of chaos who's secretly two steps ahead of everyone else, and the later films sink when they try to make him the dominant protagonist. The new Pirates movies give Disney a chance to breathe new life into a franchise that has a killer central hook. The more the films expand this world, the better the benefits will be creatively and financially. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride has made plenty of changes throughout the decades, so it makes a lot of sense for the movies to do so as well.
