Disney Is Being Forced to Bring Back Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow - Inside the Magic

The Walt Disney Company is being forced to bring back actor Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow in their massively commercial franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean.

Johnny Depp has not been in a high-profile movie since 2018. His turn as the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018), came just before the infamous libel trial at the London High Court where Justice Andrew Nicol found claims of domestic abuse against his ex-wife Amber Heard “substantially true.” This paved the way for The Sun, executive editor Dan Wootton, and parent company, News Group Newspapers LTD, to win the libel case Depp had levied against them.

The feud between Depp and Heard began years and years ago. Following their meeting on the set of The Rum Diary (2011), the pair married in 2015 but divorced just a year later. What followed was a series of domestic abuse allegations from both parties, ultimately culminating in last year’s high-profile defamation lawsuit in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Presided over by Judge Penney Azcarate, the $150 million six-week defamation suit ended with the jury primarily siding with Depp (the prolific actor was ordered to pay damages to Heard based on defaming comments made by his then-lawyer Adam Waldman), finding that Heard did defame the actor in her 2018 Op-Ed in The Washington Post — an essay which now comes with a disclaimer due to the trial outcome.

Despite Depp’s win over Heard, both Warner Bros. Discovery and The Walt Disney Company, the owners of the star’s two biggest franchises, Fantastic Beasts and Pirates of the Caribbean, have not brought Depp back into the fold. Instead, the beloved actor has been pretty much shut out of the entertainment industry; his last movie was Minimata (2020), almost three years ago. Interestingly, Minimata was featured — and won — in the Oscars’ controversial audience vote categories, proving that the #JusticeForJohnnyDepp crowd is still a loud and prominent force online.

Related: ‘Pirates’ Star Johnny Depp Finally Speaks Out After Abandoning Hollywood

So while there is still a question mark over his revival as Captain Jack Sparrow in the billion-dollar Pirates of the Caribbean franchise following the defamation trial, a bold new statement is forcing the House of Mouse to bring back the fan-favorite star.

Depp’s next movie, the French period drama Jeanne du Barry (2023), is set to open the iconic and industry-leading Cannes Film Festival. The movie comes from director and actress Maïwenn, who also stars as the eponymous Madame du Barry, and features Depp as controversial French monarch King Louis XV.

Recently, the Cannes Film Festival director, Thierry Frémaux, spoke to Variety and settled his decision to feature Jeanne du Barry as the opening movie. The director and film critic said:

I don’t see Maiwenn’s film as a controversial choice at all, because if Johnny Depp had been banned from working it would have been different, but that’s not the case. We only know one thing, it’s the justice system and I think he won the legal case. But the movie isn’t about Johnny Depp.

Related: Disney Faces Massive New “Johnny Depp” Problem as Actor Officially Charged With Assault

The comment here, that is the one from the director of one of the Big Five international film festivals, sees Disney’s hand being forced to bring back the actor as Captain Jack Sparrow. Audience demand and support for his return is at an all-time high, the reported Margot Robbie-led sixth Pirates movie is seemingly quashed, and now this bold statement made by Frémaux posits the question of what Disney is waiting for.

The door is still open for Depp, even if Disney has not spoken on the issue, but producer Jerry Bruckheimer definitely still thinks so. Depp starred in many of the Pirates franchise movies with Orlando Bloom (Will Turner) and Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Swann).

As for his role as Grindelwald, it seems that the dismal box office performance of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) has left the franchise dead in the water. What was once a promising five-movie saga has found itself pretty much run into the ground thanks to haphazard world-building and the inclusion of the Wizarding World creator herself, JK Rowling, who has been locked in controversy due to her ongoing commentary on the transgender community.

Mads Mikkelsen replaced Depp in the third Fantastic Beasts movie, with the film not acknowledging his change of appearance.

Do you think Disney should bring back Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!