Pirates of the Caribbean Reboot Script Is “Too Weird” According to The Last of Us Showrunner

Craig Mazin, the showrunner for The Last of Us, was working on a new installment in Disney’s The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise before strikes by the Writers Guild of America and The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists brought most of Hollywood to a screeching halt earlier this year. the strikes have not yet been resolved, with the the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers refusing to even negotiate on many of the unions’ key issues, which means the project is stalled — but there’s good news: apparently, it was a big swing.

So big, in fact, that Mazin told the LA Times that the story he hammered out with screenwriter Ted Elliot, who co-wrote the first of the franchise, is waiting for progress when the strikes are over and things start moving forward again.

“We pitched it and thought there’s no way they’re buying it, it’s too weird. And they did!” Mazin told the paper. “And then he wrote a fantastic script and the strike happened and everyone’s waiting around.”

There is no word at this point on what the direction of the story would be. At one point, there were rumors of a version led by Barbie star Margot Robbie, and there have been persistent rumors that Johnny Depp might return to the franchise. During his highly-publicized defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard, Depp was famously quoted as saying there was no amount of money that could get him to return to the franchise, though, so that seems unlikely.

Back in October, Saldaña revealed that executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer had approached her years after the movie had been released. Apparently, Bruckheimer had heard somehow that Saldaña had a very negative experience making the film, and apologized, saying that was not something he ever wanted an actor to experience on his sets.

“What a great movie. It really was fun and entertaining, and very well shot, very well performed,” Saldaña told Buzzfeed UK in a video seen below. “It was all around, such a diverse cast, as well. All ages, all walks of life, but a hard production. It was so big! It was too big a machine for me and it was too out of control. So what I see, that transpired onscreen, I’m very proud of. How difficult it was to get there, I don’t ever want to go back.”