Last year, Disney described Pirates Of The Caribbean as a “priority,” but the franchise has been in development hell basically since the last soft-reboot, Dead Men Tell No Tales, in 2017. In 2020, it was announced Margot Robbie was developing a female-forward Pirates with her Birds Of Prey screenwriter Christina Hodson. By 2022, she figured Disney didn’t want to make it anymore. But “These things take time,” franchise producer and Hollywood powerhouse Jerry Bruckheimer says in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly. According to him, Robbie’s version still has a fighting chance.
Currently, there are “two different” movies in development that are set in the POCCU (Pirates Of The Caribbean Cinematic Universe). One is a full franchise reboot written by Jeff Nathanson (Young Woman And The Sea) and one is the Robbie/Hodson project. “We hope to get ‘em both made, and I think Disney agrees they really want to make the Margot one, too,” Bruckheimer teases. (In fairness, he was saying the Robbie/Hodson version was still alive in 2022, shortly after Robbie assumed it was dead.)
The buried lede here is that the actual dead Pirates project is Craig Mazin’s. Mazin was teasing his version as recently as September 2023, saying Disney bought his and co-writer Ted Elliot’s script even though it was “too weird.” Maybe the weirdness ultimately bumped Mazin and Elliot from the docket, or maybe it was Mazin’s The Last Of Us schedule that prevented him from going all-in on Pirates. Whatever the case, his doesn’t seem to be one of the two POCCU projects in development right now.
Instead, it’s Nathanson’s script, which has a “great, great third act” (and which Bruckhemier wishes he could bring Johnny Depp back for, but alas, it’s a reboot and apparently not up to him), and the Robbie/Hodson version. Also, there’s going to be a new National Treasure movie, but that’s a different story. For now, let’s see whether any of these POCCU pictures ever actually make it onto screen…