After months of rumors regarding the future of the blockbuster Disney franchise, The Hollywood Reporter has brought word that Birds of Prey screenwriter Christina Hodson and star Margot Robbie are reuniting for a new Pirates of the Caribbean film!
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Though plot details are being kept close to the chest at the moment for the early-in-development project, sources report that the film is not meant to be a spinoff of the Jack Sparrow-led franchise but rather a new original story with new characters under the same titular moniker inspired by the Disneyland ride of the same name.
The film from the Birds of Prey team is also set to be a different project from the long-in-development sixth film of the Sparrow-focused franchise, which has seen a number of directors and writers come and go, currently seeing Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and franchise co-creator Ted Elliott penning the current draft. Reports surfaced last month that Disney was eying to make the sixth film a female-led reboot of the franchise with Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy), Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker) and Emma Watson (Harry Potter) reportedly being the frontrunners to star while Johnny Depp’s role was in doubt amidst his domestic abuse scandal.
Jerry Bruckheimer, who has been attached to franchise going back to its 2003 inception, will once again produce the Robbie-starring and Hodson-penned project alongside producing the sixth film in the Sparrow-centric series from Elliott and Mazin.
The studio has been looking for a way to keep the franchise alive following the fifth installment in 2017 which, though ranked as the second lowest-grossing entry in the series globally and the lowest grossing domestically, grossed an impressive $794 million worldwide at the box office.
The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise began in 2003 with the debut installment, The Curse of the Black Pearl, which received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed almost $700 million at the global box office and earning five Oscar nominations, including Depp for Best Actor. This success spawned four sequels which, though generally declining in critical reception, were still box office hits, with the second and fourth installments grossing over $1 billion each at the global box office.
After penning a few poorly-received thrillers, Hodson broke out in Hollywood with 2018’s Transformers spinoff prequel Bumblebee, which received the highest reviews of the franchise and was a box office success. She would follow it up with Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), the Robbie-led Suicide Squad spinoff that hit theaters earlier this year which, though receiving generally positive reviews from critics and audiences, did fall short of its break-even point at the box office, and is currently attached as the writer for DCEU’s The Flash and Batgirl.
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