Johnny Depp would return to Pirates of the Caribbean for a sixth movie - on one condition.
The 63-year-old actor claimed Disney had dropped him from the film franchise, in which he played Captain Jack Sparrow, and vowed never to return during his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard. The jury found Heard had defamed Depp in a 2018 Washington Post article.
He told Entertainment Tonight: "If things are exactly where they need to be with regard to how they are going to top off the Pirates thing.
"The only involvement I really want to have, truly, is just to send them off on a better note."
Depp would also be on board for a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film or any other project if Oscar-nominated producer Jerry Bruckheimer, 83, is involved.
He said: "I’ll go to work with Bruckheimer tomorrow for anything. Doesn’t matter… if it’s Jerry, I trust him. We have deep friendship."
In August, Bruckheimer said Depp was in talks for a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film, on which franchise veteran Ted Elliott has been involved with the current script.
Speaking at D23, Bruckheimer told Deadline: "We're talking with Johnny [Depp], we’re working on a screenplay, and hopefully we can get this done."
However, insiders told the outlet that Depp's character would not be the main focus of the next film, with a new face, played by Margot Robbie, 36, set to take centre stage in what was described as an "evolution of the franchise".
Bruckheimer previously addressed speculation that the story would focus on the Wuthering Heights star's character and the son of Captain Jack Sparrow.
Meanwhile, Gore Verbinski, who directed the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, recently insisted he has no plans to return to the swashbuckling saga.
In January, he told ScreenRant: "I wish them the best. I just don't have anything. I feel like I did three and, for me, it was a great opportunity to learn and to try something.
"I think we have to be at a place where the wheels are about to fall off. I think once you kind of know how to do something, it becomes less interesting or less dangerous.
"There's just so little time, and there are so many stories to tell."
Orlando Bloom, 49, who played Will Turner in the original trilogy, recently teased “maybe there’s a world where we get the band back together” for a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
In October 2025, he told Deadline: “I do think that people are really responding to nostalgia in a way at the moment.
“There's something about stepping into the world of artificial intelligence and superintelligence, where we're kind of harking back to nostalgic times and movies that had that.
“Maybe there’s a world where we get the band back together.”
However, co-star Keira Knightley, 41, who played Will's lover Elizabeth Swann, has firmly ruled out returning to Pirates of the Caribbean.
In September 2025, she explained to People: “You know I think my pirating days are over.
“I think I definitely spent many years doing that and, you know, it was amazing and I’m very pleased to have been a part of that, but I suspect that my swashbuckling days are done.”
