Johnny Depp Close to Deal for ‘Pirates 5’
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in the film franchise based on the Disney theme park ride, became the first of two movies so far in 2011 to gross $400 million-plus in the global market in its opening weekend. (The second was Transformers: Dark of the Moon, another sequel nobody appeared to be clamoring to see.) So it’s understandable that Disney would want to continue cranking out its cash machine.
Apparently, a rough draft for the fifth movie is in the works, and Johnny Depp likes what he sees, because he is apparently close to inking a deal to appear as Captain Jack Sparrow for the fifth time.
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has stated that there would be no fifth Pirates movie without Depp. Understandable, as the actor has helped Disney pull in nearly $5 billion in revenue between the first four Pirates movies and 2010‘s Alice in Wonderland.
Currently, Depp is working with Disney and Bruckheimer on a new adaptation of The Lone Ranger, in which Depp will play Tonto.
(via The Wrap)
Im having trouble locating the “dislike” button for this.
I never thought Depp would become driven by money, but that’s the only logical explanation.
I do tire of the relentless bashing. <I>On Stranger Tides</I> was leaps and bounds more engaging than the previous sequels. I think a lot of the negative reviews about it came from people who just wanted to dislike it on principle. It was the attempt to create a mythological “universe” and bloated storytelling that made <I>Dead Man’s Chest</I> and <I>At World’s End</I> so laborious. They got it right with <I>On Stranger Tides</I>, but it seems none of the haters noticed because they were too busy obsessing over its very existence to give it credit for addressing the problems of the previous films.
It seems these days as if the sentiment online is almost always a pattern of: Excitement for the first film, expressed desire for a sequel “That sucked” response to the sequel when it eventually arrives “God, nobody wants any more of these, please make them stop they’re an abomination unto the Lord” when any further sequels are announced Is it really that important to pay to go see a movie you don’t even want to exist just so you have a ticket stub to show when you whine about wanting 2 hours of your life back? There’s very little response even from fans beyond, “Awesome!” Somewhere between blind hatred and blind devotion is an adult conversation and I’d love to know where that’s taking place so I can join.
Oh, and I have to disagree with the entirely unnecessary swipe at <I>Transformers: Dark of the Moon</I>. What nobody wanted was another movie as disjointed as <I>Revenge of the Fallen</I>, What was wanted, was a <I>Transformers</I> movie with lots of robot-on-robot violence that was fun to watch. I feel we got that with <I>Dark of the Moon</I>. What astounds me about all this “OMG I can’t believe they’re making another one” hyperbole is that no one has made a big deal about the James Bond series, which has been going strong since 1962. Sometimes a Bond movie disappoints, and reaction then is always, “Yeah, I didn’t care for that one.” It’s never “Please God make them stop making James Bond movies, no one in the entire universe ever wants to see another one made for the rest of time.” The next movie is almost always different in tone and more satisfying to fans. <I>The Man with the Golden Gun</I> felt weak and generic; <I>The Spy Who Loved Me</I> was focused spectacle. <I>Moonraker</I> was over the top; <I>For Your Eyes Only</I> was grounded. <I>Die Another Day</I> became a mediocre video game in its second half; <I>Casino Royale</I> was vintage Bond. So it goes.
@TravisSMcClain Okay, so apparently the new comment system doesn’t use HTML code. Would’ve been nice to know before I created a post cluttered with it.
@TravisSMcClain Methinks I doth editorialize too much.
Personally, I’ve still not even seen Revenge of the Fallen (mostly because it is, indeed, considered a “bad” movie; I’ve allowed that to influence my desire to see it). And, indeed, I think I like the second and third Pirates movies more than most (though not enough to see either a second time).
I merely intended that offhand comment as an observation that Pirates 3 and Transformers 2 are generally considered critical failures, and nobody was really saying “Yeah! I wanna see a sequel to that!” Stranger Tides and Dark of the Moon are very much a cash grab. So’s Pirates 5.
Everything I’ve seen about On Stranger Tides makes me personally believe that I would like it. And I am curious about Dark of the Moon, but I know I have to sit through Revenge of the Fallen first.
It’d be nice if sequels could always improve on their predecessors. Of course, that’s easier to do when your predecessor sucks.
I guess I really need to make sure I stick to “just the facts” if I’m going to get comments like this!
@NigelDruitt You can skip “Revenge of the Fallen.” You know from the poster that some of the movie took place in Egypt. All you really need to know is that Sam and Simmons (John Turtorro) were present for that, and attribute the shape Megatron is in during “Dark of the Moon” to the end of “Fallen.” See? Caught up! :)I will say, the forest battle in “Fallen” is one of the best action scenes I’ve seen in any movie. That whole sequence was perfect and thrilling.
I think someone referred to Dark of the Moon as a critic-proof film. At that point I kind of stopped caring and decided I was never going to see it. This looks like it will be in the same vein. Critic-proof and a cash cow. I found myself bored with World’s End and I can’t imagine my response being any different for Stranger Tides and whatever they call this one (Boundless Booty, perhaps?)