Orlando Bloom Reportedly Returning For Pirates Of The Caribbean Reboot

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise looks set to continue, despite the tepid critical reactions and disappointing box office that greeted last installment Dead Men Tell No Tales. Although the fifth outing made $795 million globally, the studio were expecting a much higher tally given that two of the previous three entries had hit the billion dollar mark, but we live in a world where mega-budget blockbusters are under such pressure to deliver big numbers that even The Rise of Skywalker hitting $1.073 billion set alarm bells ringing at Disney.

The still-untitled sixth movie is currently being scripted by Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin alongside Pirates veteran Ted Elliott, who were brought on after Deadpool and Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick walked away. While we haven’t been made aware of any plot specifics as of yet, the latest swashbuckling adventure is rumored to be a soft reboot of the franchise, with the lead role set to be taken by a female pirate.

After initially dropping him entirely following his heavily-publicized divorce battle and the astronomical amount of money it would cost to keep him onboard, the studio are reportedly considering bringing Johnny Depp back into the fold as the iconic Captain Jack Sparrow, following huge backlash from fans and recent revelations from the court proceedings that have seen a swell of public support for the 56 year-old.

Not only that, but we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones who told us Disney were developing a live-action remake of Bambi back in the summer, and who informed us of the Aladdin sequel being in the works months before it was announced – that the Mouse House are also considering making Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner part of the sixth movie’s script, in an effort to ensure that there’s at least one Pirates of the Caribbean legacy character involved if Depp doesn’t return.

Dead Men Tell No Tales was something of a legacy sequel itself, of course, with Will’s son Henry the driving force behind the story and big third act reveals involving Geoffrey Rush’s Barbossa, but Hollywood has shown time and time again with the likes of the X-Men and Terminator brands that they’re happy to keep rebooting things over and over until audiences ultimately lose interest, and Pirates of the Caribbean is far too valuable a property to them for it to just sit gathering dust.