While Disney is working on a reboot of its Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, they have also announced a spin-off-of-sorts movie in the series as well as the casting of Margot Robbie.
The film is being written by Bumblebee and Birds of Prey scribe, Christina Hodson, and the film is reportedly going to be a female-led film. Robbie also starred in Birds of Prey, so her casting in a female-centric movie makes perfect sense. There haven’t been any details released about the plot.
The Pirates franchise started off with a bang with 2003’s Curse of the Black Pearl, but sputtered out pretty fast afterwards, despite giving us four more sequels. The second and third entries, which tried to take a page out of Peter Jackson’s book and film them simultaneously, were over-long and bloated films, though with some interesting ideas and storytelling.
The series then tried to do a soft-reboot with the fourth and fifth films, having only the character of Jack Sparrow return, as well as changing directors.
Sparrow was played by Johnny Depp and the character became a pop culture icon. However, after the legal battle and accusations between Depp and his ex-wife, Amber Heard, Disney has decided to distance themselves from the actor.
The reboot of the main series is being written by Chernobyl‘s Craig Mazin and Ted Elliot, who wrote the first three films of the series. Given the success of Chernobyl, this is exciting news, for sure, as long as they can reel it in a bit and not have an almost-three-hour long film.
The star power of Margot Robbie should be enough to bring back new audiences and catch the attention of fans of the original films. Birds of Prey was a fun, delightful film and we hope that Hodson can bring back some of that fun and magic that made the first film so memorable.
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