The long-awaited Pirates of the Caribbean 6 will be a reboot, the original producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, confirmed while speaking with Comicbook.com. The star of the original franchise, Johnny Depp, was in a very public legal battle with his ex-wife, Amber Heard, in 2022, which necessitated a change of direction for the franchise. 

Bruckheimer announced the sixth film was in development with Joachim Ronning as the director shortly after the release of the fifth film back in 2017. After many years, the producer stressed that the franchise is on track to return to the screen but now with a new cast of characters. Ted Elliott and Craig Mazin (The Last of Us) were brought on to the project as writers in 2019, but by 2023 production had stopped due to the WGA strike. 

“It’s hard to tell. You don’t know, you really don’t know,” Bruckheimer said about rebooting popular franchises. “You don’t know how they come together. You just don’t know. Because with Top Gun you have an actor who is iconic and brilliant. And how many movies he does before he does Top Gun, I can’t tell you. But we’re gonna reboot Pirates , so that is easier to put together because you don’t have to wait for certain actors.“

In 2020, it was announced that a female-led spin-off of the franchise starring Margo Robbie (Barbie) was in the works, with Christina Hodson (Birds of Prey) writing. Robbie later announced in 2022 that the project was dead in the water. Bruckheimer offered hope that a female-led movie may still be in the works.