Pirates of the Caribbean: Mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer talks future sequels with Margot Robbie and a younger cast

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer is still going strong with the biggest movie of the year (pending Avatar‘s performance) with the Tom Cruise sequel, Top Gun: Maverick. He recently talked about his plans for the future of the Disney franchise Pirates of the Caribbean. Margot Robbie had recently said that her Pirates film was dead in the water by Disney. However, Bruckheimer insists it’s still alive. And perhaps with Bob Iger running the show again, that may come to fruition. Bruckheimer had announced that there were two Pirates movies planned simultaneously. One with Robbie and one with a fresh new young cast.

In the recent Hollywood Reporter interview, Bruckheimer talks about both of the projects. He was asked why the sixth film has gone through many iterations and the producer answers, “Oh God, they’re all hard. I think we’re getting very close on that one, too. We have a very good script. We developed two of them — the one with Margot Robbie and one with a younger cast. The Margot Robbie one needs a little more work. The younger cast one is close. Hopefully we’ll get both of them.” When asked about Robbie’s impression that hers is not proceeding, he had this to say, “It’s alive for me. It’s alive for Disney. I’m sure she was disappointed it didn’t go first — or maybe not because she’s very busy, so it might be a blessing to push this a bit. We believe we’ll get it made. It’s a very strong story.”

There’s the obvious elephant in the room about Johnny Depp’s involvement as well. The Jack Sparrow actor is keeping himself busy in character; however, he has also had a tumultuous year with his trial against his ex, Amber Heard. His image may presently be a rocky one, but Bruckheimer hasn’t counted him out just yet, “He’s a friend, a terrific actor, and it’s unfortunate that personal lives creep into everything we do.” When also asked if Sparrow would be meeting a heroic end, he adds, “You can’t. We tried to kill him. It didn’t work.”

It remains to be seen what’s in store for the Pirates life, but with Bob Chapek out and Bob Iger back in at Disney, a lot of things may be reversed or overhauled.