Pirates of the Caribbean is a franchise that lost its way, starting strong with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, single-handedly reviving the swashbuckling genre, before falling prey to too many supernatural elements and too much of Johnny Depp‘s Jack Sparrow. The talk of a sixth installment was recently revived with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, including discussions of Margot Robbie‘s reboot and even a return for Depp, if he wants it.
The wise choice for Disney would be to drop the idea altogether and leave the franchise in the grave it dug for itself in No Man’s Land with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. But it’s hard to walk away from an enterprise that’s garnered over $4.5 billion to date, so it’s a foregone conclusion that Disney will dig up the corpse for another kick at the zombie monkey. And when, not if, they move ahead with a sixth installment, they need to resist the urge to revive Captain Jack Sparrow. Blasphemy? Perhaps, but they’ve already proven it can be done.
The Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise Is a Master Class in How to Botch a Sure Thing
Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) flirts with Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’Image via Buena Vista Pictures
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a film that, by rights, shouldn’t have succeeded. The swashbuckling pirate movie was bereft of life at the time, with the infamous debacle that is 1995’s Cutthroat Island delivering the final blow. There was little in the way of buzz, only doomsayers preemptively throwing the film onto the burning heap of fire that was their failed attempts at turning their famed theme park attractions into live-action features (The Country Bears, we hardly knew ye). It was also the first Walt Disney Studios movie to be rated PG-13, a bold move, no matter how ridiculous it may sound (and it does), for a studio that prides itself on entertainment for the whole family.
Yet the film defied the naysayers’ gloomy predictions to emerge as a huge hit, landing in the top 5 of the worldwide box office earnings for 2003 and launching Depp into the stratosphere with his iconic Captain Jack Sparrow. The film was a savvy mix of excellent casting, fun, bold set pieces, a winning (and original) screenplay, and a straightforward, easily understandable narrative. More importantly, it had a healthy balance of screen time for the characters. But with each sequential film in the franchise, the narrative grew increasingly convoluted, and while Jack Sparrow was a huge part of the first film’s success, Disney made the mistake of attributing a larger portion of that success to the character as opposed to those other key elements, and increased Sparrow’s presence in its sequels. Soon, songs were being sung, hearts were in boxes, ships were in a mirror world, or something, and Sparrow’s antics became tiresome.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
‘Pirates of the Caribbean 6’ Can Succeed Without Sparrow
Long story short, Disney took what was a secondary character, a spectacular one at that, and ruined him with a promotion. There’s little doubt that announcing the return of Depp to the franchise would initially be met with roaring approval, but little doubt again that moviegoers would remember how tired they were of the same shtick over and over again. But is there a Pirates of the Caribbean without the one character who has been present throughout? You bet. It goes back to those lessons that should have been learned from the first film. Jack Sparrow may have drawn the moviegoers in, but they stayed because the story and its execution was perfect.
The franchise didn’t fall apart when the likes of Geoffrey Rush‘s Barbossa, Orlando Bloom‘s Will Turner, or Keira Knightley‘s Elizabeth Swann weren’t on-screen, so the franchise has already proven it doesn’t need its main players to succeed. In fact, it could be argued that their absence for a time made their return to the franchise later on that much better. Absence, as they say, makes the heart grow fonder, and in the case of Sparrow, his absence in a sixth film would give the franchise the opportunity to right the ship with a new cast and a new, unrelated story, one that brings back the fun, simplicity, and excitement of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. It would also lend itself to a “new” Captain Jack Sparrow, if you will, a supporting character that complements the story with his antics, maybe an Aliens‘ William Hudson (Bill Paxton) type, a mouthy, but funny, hothead adept at drawing trouble. Disney should remember the gamble they took with the first film and how it paid off, and approach a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film with that same moxie instead of playing it safe. Set sail for new horizons, ye scurvy dogs of Disney. There could be buried treasure waiting.
