Fresh off earning numerous plaudits (and a hefty handful of Emmys) for his work on Chernobyl, Craig Mazin is reportedly now set to tackle yet another toxic and hostile environment that no one wants to get too close to, or even look directly at: Disney’s Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise.
As you’re probably aware, the Pirates movies hit critical mass some time back in 2017, when information about star Johnny Depp’s ugly divorce from Amber Heard—including multiple allegations of abuse and assault on Depp’s part—began spreading at catastrophic rates. (Not that this particular burst of fallout stopped Disney from moving forward with a fifth film in the franchise, Dead Men Tell No Tales, later that year.) But whether because of Depp’s alleged real-world behaviors, or just Jack Sparrow fatigue in general, U.S. audiences mostly stayed away from the franchise’s latest entry—although international audiences were a lot more forgiving. Dead Men Tell No Tales might have been the series’ weakest domestic performer, but its global numbers still made it the most successful Pirates movie to date.
As such, Disney has made no secret of its intent to continue the Pirates movies, at least eventually. But the studio has remained incredibly cagey about whether that would also mean bringing back Depp, who’s yet to have any further referendum on whether he can still operate as a leading man in the wake of his much-altered public perception. (His villain turn in The Crimes Of Grindelwald didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but it’s not like he’s the only questionable thing on offer in that anemic tributary of the Harry Potter films.)
All of which brings us back to Mazin, who, per THR, is all set to don his hazard suit to come up with a story for the new Pirates film, which will involve either a) working out how to make Jack Sparrow seem fresh/non-awful six movies in, or, b), coming up with a draw for this series other than “Watch Johnny Depp say weird shit while standing on a boat.” Mazin will be working at this heroic, potentially unsung endeavor with Pirates writer Ted Elliott, who co-wrote the first four films in the series with Terry Rossio, who’s his own whole can of worms, because apparently this particular franchise just brings out the best in folks.
73 Comments
Seems the tides have turned on this franchise. Johnny’s career sure is in hot water.
sequels:
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Next GenerationPirates of the Caribbean: Tokyo Drift-wood
Pirates of the Caribbean: I’m on a Boat (ft: T-Pain)
prequels:
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Flotsam Menace
Pirates of the Caribbean and the Temple of Doom
Pirates of the Caribbean: Sparrow Begins
Ugh, I just realized after reading your post that it will almost definitely be a prequel, with a young Sparrow – I don’t think Depp will be invited back, a cameo at most
Pirates of the Caribbean 6Caribbean 7Pira8s of the Caribbean
Looks like Johnny’s Depparted the sinking ship.
I think the movies can continue without Depp, they just need a good Hook.
There is no franchise without Johnny Depp. And this material isn’t extraordinarily deep so Disney should just move on, or do it as a Disney Plus series where the stakes aren’t as high.
They should just add Davy Jones’s goth shark daughter to the next Descendents movie, and be done with it.
I didn’t watch the last one, but not because of Depp’s personal drama. The fourth one just wasn’t very good, and the fifth one looked like more of the same. If they want to keep pumping these out, they need a fresh angle, but if they wanted to go in a new direction, I think their efforts would be better spent on a new franchise rather than trying to squeeze more cash out of this.
The fifth one was better than the fourth, and also served as an ending to Will Turner’s story arc (I think. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.)
But, yeah, it felt like they wrote this series into the ground.
They teased that Davey Jones might have returned in the post-credits scene- despite there being no explanation for why that would have happened and Bill Nighy himself not knowing about it- and Will would presumably have to be involved in whatever that turns out to be.
the 4th was pretty bad, the 5th went back up to *shrug* making it good enough for a popcorn-movieIf they insist on doing a 6th movie i advise a total franchise overhaul: throw out Johnny Depp (it doesn’t help that he lost a big chunk of his ‘naughty boy with a heart of gold’ cred, but the main problem is that his character is way overused). Throw out the Turner family as well: they got closure.
Throw out the pirates too, and add knights and move the setting to Siberia
The sad part is that the fourth book was nominally based on a genuinely great pirate novel, Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides, but it took maybe two sentences’ worth of ideas and wandered away with them. It also squandered Ian McShane and Penelope Cruz, both of whom deserved better.
It’s not terrible, but there’s way too much time spent running around in cold and wet England, waiting for them to get back to the Caribbean. (Aardman also had the characters in Pirates!, but there’s not a boring frame of that movie.)
Did Will Turner finally destroy the moon with his laser cannon he was building… I may not have watched the last few movies
Yeah, there are lots of other Disney rides that could be turned into movies — for example the PeopleMover! In a seemingly utopian city of the future a detective hunts a murderer using the titular futuristic mass transit system!
I’d watch that if Tessa Thompson was the detective.
It’s a Brave New Metropolis After All! I like it.
I hear Disneyland has this new Star Wars themed park that would make a good movie franchise.
They’re already making a jungle cruise movie lol
Coming soon to cinemas everywhere … ‘The Lost and Found Desk’!
Really, the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” was just way better than it had any right to be. It was a well-crafted, clever little story where Depp’s bonkers performance added to something that already had a lot going for it.
Since then it’s just been “Do more Jack Sparrow!” with increasingly labyrinthine plotting that made less sense with each round.
They’ve exhausted literally every sea legend at this point. The 5th movie resets the whole series by finding Poseidon’s trident and breaking every curse currently set on the entire ocean so there’s not much they can do with a continuation of this franchise
The first one was so much fun. From there… it fell off, and kept falling.
“Fuckin’ Craig”, man.
Up to five now? Um, OK.I had enough with the third one. It and Spider-Man 3 both came out in May of 2007, I saw them both, and I immediately had flashbacks to earlier franchises (like the first Batman movies and the Superman movies) where villain quantity has taken over from villain quality, and we just meandered around filling up screen time with backstories for bench-warmer bad guys or unnecessarily convoluted plots.
You and me both, but there seem to be lots of people who disagree with us. The 5 moveis have made $4.5B worldwide and the last two were not slowing down by that measure.
You won’t see Johnny Depp in this new film. BECAUSE HE’S NOT THERE!!!
Anybody ever figure out who really wrote ‘Chernobyl’? I still refuse to believe it was Mazin.
I’ve said elsewhere that I’m willing to believe that his career up to Chernobyl was just him doing his time to earn a paycheck and make a name so he could get his vanity project where he could really put himself into it and that’s how he went from shitty Hangover sequels to Chernobyl.Taking on Pirates of the Crapibbean sort of throws doubt on that theory.
Maybe he needs another big paycheck for an even more ambitious vanity project?
Fingers crossed!
It’s the Nic Cage theory of film careers.
I’m with you. His IMDb writing credits are those of a man who has great connections and not an ounce of talent. It’s hard to believe the man who wrote the Hangover Part II also wrote one of the most harrowing and finely told HBO series I’ve watched in a decade.
If you listened to the podcast, you could tell how into and meticulously researched that project was. It doesn’t mean every project will be that. Steven Speilberg made Schindler’s List and the Color Purple. He also made the BFG and Ready Player One. Writers/Directors can have dimensions and not all of them good even if they’re capable of greatness.
But Spielberg didn’t spend 20 years retreading Ready Player One before suddenly pulling Schindler’s List out of the ether. Mazin spent two decades writing genuinely horrible comedies and then pulled off a genuinely great drama.
It’s also notable that Mazin had only 8 writing credits prior to Chernobyl — it may be 20 years, but he’s hardly been the most prolific screen writer. I’d strongly encourage you to listen to his “Scriptnotes” Podcast. It’s frequently more amusing than hardhitting, but it does highlight that Mazin knows what he’s talking about and has likely been working for a paycheck.
Spielberg made better movies, but there was still hardly the pedigree of The Color Purple and Schindler’s List until he did it. And after he did them, he still went back to the stuff that was less heavy-hitting.
BBC’s The War of the Worlds had promos that said it was from the people who made Chernobyl and Mazin’s name is not in the credits. The two-part (almost four hours) show was barely okay. Not enough aliens.
I believe that would be sketchy ‘70s Soviet Union technology, a reactor with relatively notable design flaws (specifically an instability at lower power levels and a positive void coefficient, among others), terrible instrumentation and a completely untrained staff running tests they shouldn’t have, during the night.
Ivan built a nuclear reactor that could type? Holy hell.
Johnny Depp and this franchise suck, but didn’t it come out that Amber was far more abusive towards him?
No, it came out that Amber Heard was more abusive to more than just him.
What a gross situation.
That’s too bad. Chernobyl was so good, I wish Mazin would do something other than pick up a franchise well past its half life. And at this point Depp should be considered radioactive.
A few obvious points:The films still made a ton of money, and were not in any sort of serious decline in terms of worldwide take. Sort of like Bond films or MI films or even F and F films, they seem to be able to grind these out ad infinitum, and people will keep showing up.
While this site tends to hate Depp, most of the planet is just fine with him.Like it or not, the world audience that wants to see PotC movies wants to see Depp in them, with Rush often a close second (although that is now closed). There is NOT a franchise without Depp.If they are actually moving forward with a writer, it is only because they think Depp may do another.
My son was born in 2000 and he hit the zone of PotC mania right after Dead Man’s Chest (aka part 2) came out. I had to watch them over and over and over again. The first three wore me down until I gave in. I like them. The music in #3 is fantastic so, props to Hans Zimmer. #4 has one fantastic sequence – the mermaid scene – the rest is … meh to tolerable. #5 has some good ideas, the entire cast is solid, but Salazar is no kind of bad guy. Depp caught in a loop-the-looping guillotine was inspired. Sparrow so crushed and alcoholic that he gave away his prized possession – his compass – for a bottle of rum, signaled the movie might actually go somewhere deep on us. But those were only two scenes. Barbosa was the only good thing about Part 5 otherwise. Numbers 4 & 5 had a kind of National Treasure vibe involving “solving the mystery etc.” to find the supernatural item or doohickey. My son didn’t like the last one, not just because he was 17 at the time.How about do Pirates of the Caribbean presents: The Sea Hawk. Just straight up remake The Sea Hawk. Or Captain Blood. Or The Buccaneer. idk.
The production quality of this franchise is insanely good.
I maintain to this day that at least part of the success of the franchise was due to the production design on the first film and all the subsequent ones being so incredibly good that it was flat out impossible for anyone who’s seen any bit of it to dismiss it, for any of the myriad reasons dismissing it made sense to do (especially when the first one was coming out). It was self-evidently a huge blockbuster in every shot, and anyone who’d say it was ‘just a theme park ride’ or ‘a silly pirate movie’ looked like an idiot.
Especially because a pirate movie is really hard to not look cheesy
I don’t particularly like the second or third movies (especially the third movie, where the cast turns into the Pirate Justice League), but both have genuinely spectacular action sequences. The second film in particular, with the waterwheel fight and the three-person sword fight on the sand bar, has some of the best action sequences in film of all time.
I would love to see them either incorporate Treasure Island into the PotC universe or, and this is a weird deep cut, but it’d amuse the hell out of me, redo Cutthroat Island.
Honestly even without the abuse allegations, I feel that we all sort of got tired of Depp.
I distinctly remember many “look at Johnny Depp putting on silly makeup again” jokes right before the abuse allegations. He was getting a reputation for making crap before getting a reputation for being crap.
‘incredibly cagey about bringing back Depp’There’s your answer. Nicolas Cage as Jack Sparrow — or his successor Captain Jonathan Blaze, the Ghost Pirate. (His flag is a flaming skull.)
Where he keeps stealing the Declaration of Independence from a fledgling America? Go on…
I like where this is going.
He’s also able to disguise himself by taking other people’s faces… away.
All joking aside, I’d watch the hell out of that.
I’d prefer Captain Memphis RainesHe has to steal 50 ships in 24 hours while being chased by Timothy Olyphant
Maybe they could just actually adapt On Stranger Tides instead of cadging a few bits from it.
Oh well, here we go again….
(FYI: Johan Renck, the director of Chernobyl was the lead in this band. Just love the 90s quirk)
I feel like I’m the only one who likes these movies. I really liked the last one. I don’t take them serious, they’re just a lot of fun–plus I really like pirates and the mythology they created for these movies.
I don’t think that’s correct that Part 5 was the most successful overall. It made almost $795 million globally but Parts 2 and 4 cracked $1 billion and Part 3 was close.Also given the huge budget (well north of $200 million), I believe it was also more expensive than any of the others (it also helped with the production costs that 2 and 3 were filmed together).In fact, that’s why I thought they were rebooting, costs were going up and there was a marked drop in revenue from one film to the next. I believe I’d heard something to this effect a while ago.
Just ditch the human actors and make 2 hours of CGI giant octopus fights?
“Dead Men Tell No Tales […] global numbers still made it the most successful Pirates movie to date.”Oh, really? According to Box Office Mojo, Tales made $795m worldwide. On Stranger Tides made $1,045m. Tides also made about $70m more domestically, and American movies get a bigger chunk of domestic ticket tales than foreign ones. In other words: do you put in any effort to this site at all?
Allegedly, Stranger Tides had a $400 million budget whereas Dead Men Tell No Tales had $230 million. Dead Men had the smallest budget since the second film so I think if you’re considering Net Profit, there might be an argument that Dead Men Tell No Tales was more successful numerically.
Perhaps, but Hughes didn’t write “profitable”; he wrote “successful,” which has a clear and separate meaning. As for profitability, especially when DVD sales are factored in, I don’t buy for a second that the first movie wasn’t more profitable than Tales, and Hughes wrote that Tales was “the most successful Pirates movie to date.” So, any way you cut it, he’s dead wrong. Arrrr.
I do think the one big difference between Curse of the Black Pearl and the later movies is that the movie market in China has changed since 2003. In 2003, Black Pearl made 2.9 million in China. Dead Men Tell No Tales made 172 million. I don’t think that’s done to anything other than changing markets. But you’re right — profitable and successful aren’t necessarily the same.
The first movie still deserves credit for going to a genre that was pretty dead and Johnny Depp did create an interesting character — they just drove it into the ground. That said, I do think you can take the idea of a Pirate movie and do something different and potentially interesting with it especially if you focus more on exploration and pirate intrigue and less on supernatural pirate shenanigans.
Fuck the US market. As long as the Chinese don’t got no problem with Depp banging Heard’s ass, we’ll get more Pirates.
I’m sure they could make a great movie without the Jack Sparrow character. With such rich source material, they should be able to adapt one of the other characters into a lead role.
Disney is going all-in on their Redd Pirate reboot — the rebranding of the formerly way-too-into-it woman being human trafficked on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Last time I was at Disneyland, a large portion of their pirates merchandise was all about her.
I’m guessing their plan is to ignore the ending of the fifth movie — set to bring back all the Davy Jones shenanigans from the second and third movies — and just do a new film centered around a swashbuckling Redd. There’s plenty of young actresses who could carry a franchise like this and very few of them are a Johnny Depp size trash fire at the moment.