Pirates of the Caribbean producer teases potential Jack Sparrow return - will Johnny Depp reprise role?

"If he likes the way the part’s written, I think he would do it," he said. "It’s all about what’s on the page, as we all know... We are still working on a screenplay. We want to make it. We just got to get the right screenplay. We haven’t quite gotten there yet, but we’re close.”

Depp has largely been absent from major Hollywood productions in the years since his legal battles began, although he is set to star alongside Penélope Cruz and Madelyn Cline in the upcoming action thriller Day Drinker, directed by The Amazing Spider-Man's Marc Webb.

Depp previously sued ex-wife Heard for defamation over an opinion article she wrote for The Washington Post, in which she described herself as a "public figure representing domestic abuse", but did not mention Depp by name. Heard then filed a countersuit.

A seven-person jury reached a verdict in June 2022, with Depp – who strongly denied abusing Heard – winning three counts of defamation. He was awarded $10.35 million in damages, while Heard was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages after winning one of her counterclaims.

Heard sought to appeal the ruling but later confirmed that she had agreed to a legal settlement and would not be going ahead with her planned appeal.

In 2020, Depp lost a libel case against The Sun after he sued the newspaper for publishing an article calling him a “wife beater”, with a judge ruling that the publication had proved what was in the article to be "substantially true".

Depp asked the Court of Appeal for permission to challenge the ruling, but the application was refused.

In terms of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, there has long been talk that Disney is looking to reboot the franchise – with more than eight years having passed since the last entry in the popular series was released in cinemas.

What has been less clear is exactly what route it would choose to sail down, with speculation of both a brand new direction for the franchise – including reports of a Margot Robbie-led reboot – and a continuation of the existing saga.

Last year, Bruckheimer suggested that Jeff Nathanson – the writer of the most recent film Dead Men Tell No Tales (aka Salazar's Revenge) – had "cracked" the screenplay for the next film and that he had penned a "great, great third act" but the rest of the script wasn't quite there yet.

Meanwhile, in June he told ScreenRant that the next film wouldn't just consist of new actors and "we’ll have some back", but declined to clarify who those actors would be.

Of course, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush are among the stars to have had major roles alongside Depp in the previous films – and it's not clear yet if any of them could return.

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