The producer Jerry Bruckheimer having a seemingly worrying inability to articulate the future of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise began when 2003’s The Curse of the Black Pearl proved to be a sleeper hit upon release. While the studio was optimistic about the theme park ride adaptation’s box-office potential, few industry insiders expected the original movie to take home over $700 million and earn its leading man an Oscar nomination. Overnight, Pirates of the Caribbean became a massively profitable brand, and the sequels proceeded to waste the impressive audience goodwill that the beloved first movie generated.
To be fair to the Pirates of the Caribbean series, the first few movies had style and ambition to spare. Although director Gore Verbinski’s earliest sequels did focus on Johnny Depp’s fan-favorite Jack Sparrow too much, 2006's Dead Man’s Chest and 2007's At World’s End couldn’t be faulted for their attempts to build an immersive fictional universe filled with complex lore. Where The Curse of the Black Pearl was a conventional slice of swashbuckling action, the remaining movies of the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy told a surprisingly dark, morally ambiguous, and densely plotted story. This singular vision didn’t resonate with everyone (critics and audiences alike), but it did build a Pirates of the Caribbean universe that future movies could have built upon, only for the later sequels to reject this approach entirely. This decision, more than anything, doomed any potential Pirates of the Caribbean spinoffs.
The Pirates of the Caribbean Universe Explained
Outside of the central story that revolved around Jack, Elizabeth, and Will, the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels introduced Captain Barbossa, Davy Jones and his pet Kraken, the East India Trading Company, Calypso, Blackbeard, and Salazar. That was just the villains of the franchise’s universe and does not even for the nine Pirate Lords and how they worked, Jack’s father, and the history of the many magical locations of the series such as the Fountain of Youth and the real-life island of Tortuga. The original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy was packed with this sort of world-building which was largely dropped by the fourth and fifth outings, wherein Jack was the sole focus of the story. However, as Salazar and Blackbeard proved, even these sequels added more to the world of the franchise. However, by that point, it had become increasingly clear that the Pirates of the Caribbean series would never shift its focus.
Pirates of the Caribbean Never Used Its Villains
While the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise villains have incredible spinoff potential thanks to their complex backstories and empathetic traits, the franchise’s focus on Jack Sparrow and company meant that viewers never really got to understand them. Davy Jones’ motives, the East India Trading Company’s rise to prominence, or how Jones came to control the Kraken went under-explained, as did the origins of that Lovecraftian creature. Worst of all, the sad tale of how Jones betrayed Calypso was reduced to a lone brief scene of the former lovers talking about their history in the third movie, even though this intriguing story of betrayal, lost love, and revenge could have sustained an entire Pirates of the Caribbean prequel.
How Jack Sparrow Derailed The POTC Franchise
Centering the stories of the sequels on Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean 6 fee alone proved that the franchise’s creators had no intentions of pulling focus away from his character in the next sequel. Instead, the franchise was set to keep milking the beloved antihero for all he was worth at the expense of the rest of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, an approach that left any potential spinoffs feeling pointless in his absence.
Could A Pirates of the Caribbean Spinoff Still Work?
While a Pirates of the Caribbean spinoff that centered on a character other than Jack Sparrow could still technically happen, it is unlikely that the project would be as successful in 2022 as it might have been a decade earlier. It has now been over half a decade since the lukewarm reception of the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie in 2017 and a decade and a half since the original trilogy’s intriguing characters were last seen onscreen. Margot Robbie’s proposed Pirates of the Caribbean spinoff has been in development hell since 2020 and even that project’s announcement didn’t come with any guarantees that the movie would revisit specific figures from the well-rounded fictional universe of the series.
If a Pirates of the Caribbean spinoff were to draw on the mythology established in the original trilogy, the project would be relying on viewers ing movies from over 15 years ago. While this may work in the case of Star Wars (although the critical reception of the prequels proves this distance was a mixed blessing at best), the Pirates of the Caribbean series is neither as well-established nor as fondly ed as that cultural touchstone. Meanwhile, while viewers would likely have jumped at a spinoff from the series during the height of its popularity, currently, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is too old to be relevant and too new to spark nostalgia. As such, a Pirates of the Caribbean movie with Depp’s Sparrow could seem like a desperate ploy to keep the series alive instead of an attempt to broaden the scope of its story. Thus, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies can’t pull off a spinoff the way that the series could have at the peak of the franchise’s popularity.
