Johnny Depp’s Return As Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean 6 Is Now One Step Closer

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) was slightly more enjoyable than Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, but it was still the franchise treading water after what seemed to be a wrapped story. It also made about $250 million less than On Stranger Tides, seeming to indicate that audiences the world over were growing tired of Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow schtick. And considering he was receiving his lines through an earpiece, it seemed so too was Depp. And it shows, too, in his fifth and still final pirate adventure. Or is it, in fact, his final pirate adventure? A year after Dead Men Tell No Tales, all of the tumult between himself and Amber Heard started to hit the public eye, resulting in, amongst other things, his being asked to resign from the Fantastic Beasts franchise in November 2020. In June 2022, however, Depp won his defamation case against Heard, and it was seen as the potential beginning of a comeback for the Sleepy Hollow actor.

And, while not much has come of that since 2022, 2026 appears to be Depp’s year. Marc Webb’s (The Amazing Spider-Man) action thriller Day Drinker is Depp’s first American studio movie in years, but it’s Ti West’s newly announced Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol that will be his major chance. If it takes off, could this be the opening of the door that leads back to Jack Sparrow?

Why a Sixth Depp Pirates Movie Now Seems More Likely

There are actually two takes on A Christmas Carol coming from horror directors. One is West’s version and the other comes from Robert Eggers, fresh off the success of Nosferatu. The West-Depp version is rumored to be at least somewhat a member of the genre for which its director is well-known, and it seems likely Eggers’ version will be much the same.

A Christmas Carol is a big-name property, and it’s been adapted to death, so having a bit of a horror twist could help it stand apart from the more straightforward adaptations of the past. For instance, the high-budgeted Jim Carrey version from 2009. Furthermore, West is used to working with lower budgets, so if his version can be made on a modest price tag and then attract a lot of interest, it could be the hit Depp needs under his belt at the moment.

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If Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol takes off, Disney may very well see him as a bankable star once more. Outside of the Pirates movies, the last hit movie Depp fronted was Alice in Wonderland all the way back in 2010. Rango, Tourist, and Black Mass all did well enough but The Rum Diary, Dark Shadows, The Lone Ranger, Transcendence, Mortdecai, and Alice Through the Looking Glass all either underperformed or outright flopped. Since then, there have been tiny movies like The Professor, Waiting for the Barbarians, Minamata, and Jeanne du Barry.

Ebenezer is Depp’s chance, but we’ll have to wait until November 13th of next year to see if audiences are ready to once more embrace him as a studio leading man. If they do, Disney may very well feel comfortable funneling another few hundred million in a massive pirate adventure.

Naturally, it would also be up to Depp whether he would return. A few months ago, we reported that franchise producer Jerry Bruckheimer was hoping Pirates would make a comeback and, according to him, it seems as though Depp isn’t fully closed off to the idea. It basically just comes down to whether the actor likes the script.

Now that Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbosa is dead and Keira Knightley has said she’s done with franchise filmmaking, most of the original cast wouldn’t be back. Orlando Bloom has expressed interest, but without Knightley’s Elizabeth, Bloom’s Will Turner would very much seem out of place. Perhaps the sixth Pirates film could include Depp but pair him with the actor who will end up being the new face of the franchise, like the frequently rumored Margot Robbie. He could pass the torch, and the sword, and the hat, and Jack the monkey if that little bugger is still running around the Black Pearl.