Johnny Depp is finally talking about the possibility of returning as Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean 6.” Speaking to Entertainment Tonight at the “Ebenezer” press tour, the Oscar nominee stopped short of confirming he would don the pirate costume once again. Instead, Depp said he would never turn down his friend and franchise producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s request.
“If things are exactly where they need to be in terms of how they’re going to wrap up the ‘Pirates’ franchise… all I really want to do is send them off on a better note,” Depp said when asked about his involvement in the franchise’s next chapter. “I’ll go to work too [Jerry] Bruckheimer for everything tomorrow. It doesn’t matter… if it’s Jerry, I trust him. We have a deep friendship.”
Bruckheimer confirmed to Entertainment Weekly in the summer of 2025 that he was talking to Depp about a new “Pirates” movie. The producer was optimistic that Jack Sparrow could return, saying: “If he liked the way the role was written, I think he would. As we all know, it’s all about what’s on the page… We’re still working on a script. We want to do it. We just have to find the right script. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re getting close.”
Depp starred in five “Pirates” films from 2003 to 2017, all of which grossed more than $650 million at the worldwide box office. 2006’s “Dead Man’s Chest” and 2011’s “On Stranger Tides” grossed over $1 billion. His future on the Disney-backed series has been a question mark since his legal troubles and the libel lawsuit filed against Amber Heard in 2022; but this month he’s making his return to Hollywood with the Paramount-backed holiday movie “Ebenezer.” The “Pirates” movies, with Depp front and center, collectively grossed $4.5 billion.
The road to the sixth “Pirates” movie was a long one. Diversity In the summer of 2020, it was reported that Disney was in early development on two “Pirates” movies: a Margot Robbie-led reboot and a sixth film in the original series. Robbie revealed to Vanity Fair in November 2022 that she wasn’t interested in Disney’s film with “more female leads.” Meanwhile, Bruckheimer said: E.W. By the summer of 2024, screenwriter Jeff Nathanson (2017’s “Dead Men Tell No Tales”) was on board the real “Pirates 6.”
“He figured it out,” Bruckheimer said when Nathanson’s script was written. “It’s got a great third act. We’ve got to clean up the first and second act and then we’ll get there. But he wrote a very, very great third act.”
Bruckheimer said around the same time that he would be open to bringing Depp back for the Nathanson-penned film, explaining: “It’s a reboot, but if it were up to me, [Johnny] would be in it. I love it. He’s a good friend. He is an amazing artist and has a unique look. He created Captain Jack. That wasn’t on the page, he was doing a little Pepé Le Pew and Keith Richards. “That was his take on Jack Sparrow.”
Depp’s last Hollywood studio film was 2018’s “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” but he now has two more movies coming out thanks to “Ebenzer” and Lionsgate’s 2028 thriller “Day Drinker.” Warner Bros. asked Depp to exit “Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets” after losing a libel lawsuit against The Sun in 2020. The actor sued the UK publication for referring to him as a “wife beater”, but the court ruled that Depp’s description was “substantially accurate”. Depp eventually re-starred in the sequel alongside Mads Mikkelsen.
A second Depp-centered lawsuit was heard in the United States in 2022, after Depp sued his ex-wife Amber Heard for defamation over an column she wrote in The Washington Post in which she referred to him as a “figure representing domestic violence.” The outcome of this trial was more in Depp’s favor, as the jury ultimately found that Heard had slandered Depp in her column (although the jury also found that Depp had slandered Heard during the fight against the charges).