Disney is moving forward on a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film, and the next chapter will center on a protagonist played by Margot Robbie, with Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow in a supporting role.
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer confirmed at D23 that the studio is in active conversations with Depp about coming back. “We’re talking with Johnny, we’re working on a screenplay, and hopefully we can get this done,” he said. Nothing is signed. A screenplay is in progress and no deal has been announced.
The structural change came separately from Bruckheimer. Sources say the continuation will not play as another Jack Sparrow adventure. Robbie’s character carries the film, Sparrow appears alongside her, and the franchise repositions around a new lead.
Robbie has been attached to the Pirates world since 2020, when Disney began developing a female-led installment separate from the mainline sequel. For years those were two distinct projects. In 2024 Bruckheimer described them exactly that way, saying “it’s two different movies” and adding that Disney wanted both made. Robbie herself said in late 2022 that she believed her version had stalled out. The current reporting points to those two tracks collapsing into one, with Robbie’s character folded directly into Pirates 6.
Depp last played Sparrow in 2017’s Dead Men Tell No Tales. That film earned $795.9 million worldwide, the lowest total of any entry in the series outside the 2003 original. Across five movies, the franchise has taken in $4.5 billion globally, which keeps it among the most valuable live-action properties Disney owns.
There is no director attached and no release date set.
The open question is money. Disney is rebuilding a franchise that has been dormant for nine years, and Depp in a supporting capacity still commands a lead actor’s price. How the studio squares a reduced role with a full paycheck is the piece nobody has addressed publicly.
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