This past weekend Disney’s Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides past the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office, giving the franchise a total gross of $3.7 billion for the studio. Needless to say, Disney would love to make another film to keep the cash coming in. Key to that, though, would be whether star Johnny Depp wanted to do yet another go-round playing the roguish Captain Jack Sparrow.
Fortunately for Disney, Depp does, as The Wrap is reporting that the actor is close to signing a deal with the studio to return for a fifth film. It appears that Depp’s final commitment will depend on the proposed script by Terry Rossio, co-writer of the previous four films. The Wrap is reporting that Pirates producer Jerry Bruckheimer and others have been “meeting intensively – three and four times a week – on improving it.”
Depp has certainly become Disney’s box office good luck charm of late. In addition to the Pirates franchise, Depp headlined their 2010 Alice In Wonderland, which sold $1 billion in tickets worldwide. The studio is obviously hoping that he will be able to do the same with their upcoming adaption of The Lone Ranger, also with Bruckheimer producing, scheduled for release next year. Of course, the Pirates franchise has been good to Depp, who has reportedly earned somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 million from the four films.
If Depp does agree to a new Pirates film, don’t expect to see it before 2013 though. He is currently at work on Tim Burton’s adaption of the cult favorite gothic soap opera Dark Shadows and will be moving on to The Lone Ranger in October.
