'Pirates of the Caribbean' Reboot Rumoured to Star Karen Gillan

Disney's 'Pirates of the Caribbean' reboot starring Karen Gillan is not the sixth instalment, just a way of keeping the franchise alive and testing if audiences care about the IP or only Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow

'Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge' (CREDIT: Disney)

by Jack Linsdell

We received news yesterday that Disney is developing a female-fronted reboot of their Pirates of the Caribbean property, and is looking to hire Guardians of the Galaxy and Jumanji: Next Level actress Karen Gillan to play the lead. Although, this is still in early development stage, and with most "greenlighted" films often falling into years of production hell before ever getting made, it's worth us all taking this with a pinch of salt. However, continuing with the rumour mill, it's speculated she would be playing a new character, Redd, a character from Disney's Pirates theme park ride, in the auction scene I believe - which will please many fans, or so I'm told. 

Anyway, a few hours after the first report dropped, we then heard that this reboot is not Pirates of the Caribbean 6, the sequel to 2017's Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge, and is thus a separate reboot/spin-off to the main series, although it's expected to be set within the same continuity. This is because Terry Rossio (whose penned all five instalments of the franchise so far) has returned to develop the screenplay for Pirates 6, which will see Kaya Scodelario (who appeared in the last film, and is pictured above on the far left) returning. Johnny Depp is expected to return for that movie, when his contract negotiations are...shall we say, formalised. And, that could be a long time coming yet. Which, is why Disney is going ahead with this separate, female-led reboot. The choice of Gillan, if she agrees to the project, is sensible. She's surmounted herself in recent years with key supporting roles in two of the biggest commercial series around, Guardians of the Galaxy and Jumanji, both of which were in many ways, modern knock-offs to the Pirates of the Caribbean series anyway. Considering Gillan has found critical and commercial success in those action-adventure movies, and is often most men's definition of eye-candy, then it seems a sensible choice for her to front this reboot. 

It's no secret that despite making over $12 billion in theatrical revenue alone last year, Disney is only finding such success with the brands and franchises they've brought the rights too. Their acquisitions of Lucasfilm (Star Wars) and Marvel, has given them two of the biggest franchise properties around, not to mention buying Fox recently, which has given them Kingsman, Deadpool, X-Men and The Simpsons. However, apart from finding success with some of their live-action remakes (Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast etc.), Disney has struggled with their own, original movies, with The Lone Ranger, A Wrinkle in Time and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms being humiliating examples of movies that bombed critically and commercially too. They haven't had a successful original franchise of their own since National Treasure in 2004, and therefore Pirates of the Caribbean and it's $4.5 billion success from 2003-2011 reminds us all of the time their original movies ruled the roost. So, it's no surprise that Disney needs to keep Pirates going, because it's the only successful IP they have in their machine that they haven't acquired by buying another company. 

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of Black Pearl (man, I hate these long titles), debuted in 2003 to much acclaim, launching Johnny Depp's defining franchise with a $654 million worldwide cume on a respectable $140 budget. It caused 2006's Dead Man's Chest to be a breakout sequel, earning a whopping $1.06 billion, cementing itself as a blockbuster series. Although 2007's At World's End dropped slightly to $963 million, that was mostly due to how close instalments two and three were to one another, but it was still a massive total. 2011's On Stranger Tides put the franchise back above that coveted milestone with a $1.04 billion worldwide cume, with the latest instalment, 2017's Dead Men Tell No Tales dropping back to nearly where the franchise began, with a measly (by comparison) $794 million global gross. Now, it show's that although the series is still a big money maker, considering how much the theatrical landscape, and moviegoers habits have changed since 2011, is mostly why Dead Men Tell No Tales grossed far less than any of the previous sequels. Indeed, with streaming taking over, and with less people going to the movies just to go to the movies than they did in 2011 (even 2017), it's right for Disney to be cautious about how much audiences still love the Pirates series. 

This is why the reboot is a clever option. On the one hand, they get to test if audiences still care about the Pirates series, and offer a media-friendly (capitalising on the MeToo Movement), female-fronted spinoff, that could expand the series demographic to young girls (the series tends to play heavily to boys, surprise, surprise). On the other hand, they get to test if audiences care about the Pirates IP on it's own, or if they only want to see Pirates if it's "Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow". Think, The Bourne Legacy, which although being a good movie, proved that audiences only want "Matt Damon as Jason Bourne", and didn't care about the Bourne IP in general. And, they get to do all this, while still making money from an original movie of their own (providing the budget is kept in check). So, really, Disney's Pirates reboot/spinoff is a clever and sensible idea, and if it's a success, could expand and rejuvenate the franchise, allowing Depp's return to a supposed Pirates 6 to be less important. 

So, this is one of the most interesting developments taking shape at the moment. Disney could be in a position, let's say by 2025, where they could have a successful Pirates reboot, starring Gillan as a strong female character, and an epic sixth-part conclusion with Depp to wrap up the main series. Or, audiences could say no, and they could be back to where they are now. Desperately searching the seven seas for a hit movie franchise that isn't something they've just brought.