Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales

Plot

13 years after Will Turner first leaves Elizabeth Swann aboard the Flying Dutchman, Will is visited by his twelve-year-old son, Henry. Will is still bound to the Dutchman, but Henry says that he can be freed from his curse by the Trident of Poseidon. Although his father tells him to accept his fate, Henry intends to recruit pirate Captain Jack Sparrow to help find the Trident.

Nine years later, Henry is a sailor aboard a British Navy ship, which sails into the supernatural Devil's Triangle, where the sailors come across the ghost ship Silent Mary and are slaughtered by ghosts led by the Spanish Navy pirate hunter, Captain Armando Salazar. Salazar leaves Henry as the sole survivor so that he can deliver a message of revenge to Jack. Jack, as a young pirate, had tricked Salazar into entering the Triangle, causing his death but also inadvertently cursing his ship and crew as the undead.

On Saint Martin, young astronomer Carina Smyth is sentenced to death for witchcraft but escapes and crosses paths with Jack, who has been suffering from a spell of bad luck since his last adventure, as his pirate crew botches a bank robbery. Jack later trades his compass for a drink, an act that destroys the Devil's Triangle and frees Salazar's ghostly crew to seek revenge. Carina learns Henry is looking for the Trident's location and offers to help him using her unknown father's diary. Upon their arrests, Carina and Jack stall the execution process, but they escape with the help of Henry and Jack's crew. They all set sail on the Dying Gull, where Carina deciphers the clues in her diary, discovering that the stars will lead to an island where the Trident is hidden.

Meanwhile, Captain Hector Barbossa is informed that Salazar has attacked three pirate ships of Barbossa's fleet. Shansa, a sea witch, tells Barbossa that the Trident could lead him to a "treasure" and gives him Jack's compass. Barbossa makes a deal with Salazar by offering to help find Jack. Salazar pursues the Dying Gull, forcing Jack, Henry, and Carina to flee to an island, discovering that Salazar's crew cannot go on land. Barbossa allies himself with Jack, releasing the miniaturized Black Pearl that was trapped in a bottle by Blackbeard, and taking command of it once more as they continue their journey to the Trident's island. During the voyage, Jack and Barbossa realize Carina is Barbossa’s long-lost daughter.

The Silent Mary destroys a British Navy warship and battles the Pearl until it runs aground on the Trident's island. Jack, Barbossa, and Carina use the island's magic to part the ocean, which opens a path to the Trident on the ocean floor. Salazar captures Henry and possesses him to walk on the ocean floor and seize the Trident. Once he does so, Henry is given his body back, and Jack distracts Salazar, allowing Henry to destroy the Trident, breaking all curses upon the sea and restoring Salazar's crew to life. However, the Trident's destruction causes the divided sea to close in on them. The Pearl lowers its anchor to lift the group to safety, but Salazar pursues them.

Cast

Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow: A down-on-his-luck pirate and captain of the Black Pearl, which is now trapped in a bottle, who travels with Henry and Carina in search of the Trident of Poseidon to defeat an old nemesis, Captain Salazar. Rønning wanted to focus on relatable characters, as in the first film, "where Jack is not the [lead ... but] comes in and crashes the party every now and then," and to make use of Depp's "comedic genius". The film examines Jack's backstory, with the young Jack portrayed by Anthony De La Torre, whose face was replaced by a CGI replica of Depp as he looked in 21 Jump Street and What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993). Rønning felt de-aging Depp was tricky against the canon of the franchise.

Javier Bardem as Captain Armando Salazar: Once the greatest pirate hunter who ever roamed the seas as Captain of the Silent Mary for the Spanish Navy, an old nemesis of Jack Sparrow, now a cursed ghost commanding a crew of undead soldiers who escape from the Devil's Triangle, seeking revenge on Jack Sparrow and determined to kill every pirate at sea. "He's a little supernatural. He's on a real mission of vengeance for something Jack did to him when he was 18. He's a pretty nasty character." Bardem set out to imbue the character with "a rage based on dented pride," owing to his spectacular fall, from a high-ranking commander of a Spanish fleet to being betrayed and trapped in hell by Jack. With Salazar's body language, he tried to convey a bull in an arena, "full of rage and need of vengeance, but also wounded." It took three hours a day to apply the make-up, which Bardem referred to as having "cold chicken breasts" glued to his face.

Geoffrey Rush as Captain Hector Barbossa: Sparrow's rival, the former Captain of the Black Pearl, and the Captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge. On the character's role of having settled into a growing and prosperous pirate empire, Rush said, "Barbossa has become extremely wealthy. He's got more money than he can deal with and he's not a guy of high taste. He's running a very big empire, maybe 10 or 12 ships, so he's the kingpin."

Brenton Thwaites as Henry Turner: The son of Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann who vows to break his father's curse by searching for the Trident. The directors were keen to draft a new protagonist relationship with Henry and Carina, stating that "in the middle of a big action scene, you need to be able to lean on the characters and find the heart of that story, and channel the characters' vulnerability." Rønning noted that identity is a major theme in the film, and to Henry and Carina's story arc: "they are on a similar quest and find common ground in looking for who they are." Bruckheimer also said the film recaptured the spirit of the first film after they previewed the picture, as well as how Will's son [Thwaites] and the "search for his father" was the backbone of the story. Lewis McGowan is credited as 12-Year-Old Henry.

Production

Development

Shortly before the release of On Stranger Tides, the cast and crew of the fourth film were told to set aside time in the near future, because Walt Disney Pictures intended to shoot a fifth and sixth film back-to-back. However, it was later stated that only a fifth film was in the works, with Terry Rossio writing a script for a fifth film without his partner Ted Elliott. Rob Marshall was rumoured to return to direct, but declined after choosing to direct Into the Woods (2014). After Marshall passed on the film, many directors were rumored to take over. Gore Verbinski, who was responsible for the original three films, felt that "there's no reason other than financial" in making the film. The eventual shortlist included Fredrik Bond, Rupert Sanders, and the eventual choice, Norwegian film duo Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg. The studio chose them based on their Academy Award-nominated high-sea film Kon-Tiki, and their ability to work with a limited budget.

Rossio's script was discarded in 2012, and the writer stated that a major reason was its use of a female villain, which made actor Johnny Depp "worried that it would be redundant to Dark Shadows, which also featured a female villain." In January 2013, Disney hired Jeff Nathanson to work on a script. Nathanson's script featured the Trident of Poseidon, loosely based on the Trident of Neptune from Rossio's unproduced screenplay. Rønning and Sandberg said they were particularly moved by Nathanson's "funny and touching" script, which convinced them to sign to direct in May, Rønning believing that the script was "all there" but needed scenes to "carry the tradition of Gore Verbinski, bring the emotional core and big action set pieces." In August, Rønning and Sandberg revealed that the title would be Dead Men Tell No Tales, and that it would be both a stand-alone adventure and tie into the overall mythology of the series. In the following month, producer Jerry Bruckheimer said, "We have an outline everyone loves but the script is not done," explaining that the release would be postponed beyond summer 2015. The studio questioned Depp's bankability following the financial losses of The Lone Ranger (2013), and the screenplay's first drafts were not approved by Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn, who was concerned about the finished product. Bruckheimer revealed that script and budget issues were behind the delay, and that Nathanson was at work on a second draft, based on a well-received outline, saying they needed a script and budget everyone would approve. Depp was also invited to collaborate on the script, with the actor believing it would be the last of the franchise and wanting to end it right. After the script was accepted, the film was officially green-lit by Disney in July 2014, with a planned release on July 7, 2017.

Casting

Speaking at the On Stranger Tides press launch in Cannes, Depp said he would play the role so long as it is popular with the public. By August 2012, news surfaced that Depp had signed for the fifth film, earning A$90 million to reprise his role. One month later, Penélope Cruz stated that in spite of her enjoying playing Angelica in On Stranger Tides, she had not been contacted regarding a fifth film. Geoffrey Rush had commented on returning as Hector Barbossa in the fifth installment, saying "If they keep shapeshifting this character, absolutely," and implied that he might return as the villain. Other co-stars from the previous film include Sam Claflin as Philip Swift, Astrid Berges-Frisbey as Syrena and Greg Ellis as Theodore Groves, even though Groves appeared to have died in On Stranger Tides. In October 2012, Keith Richards expressed interest in reprising his role as Captain Teague, but was unavailable by the time the film went into production.

On December 2, 2013, it was reported that Christoph Waltz was in talks to appear as the film's main antagonist Captain Brand, a vengeful British ghost, and Disney was interested in Rebecca Hall as the female lead Carina Smyth, a woman in her late 30s who is an astronomer accused of being a witch. but he later declined. The villain was eventually portrayed by Cruz's husband, Javier Bardem. In 2014, Bardem signed on to portray the ghostly Armando Salazar of the Spanish Navy, who in Nathanson's early scripts was referred to as the ghostly Captain John Brand of the British Navy. Bardem had liked the working environment of the fourth movie, which he witnessed accompanying his wife, and stated he was also a fan of the franchise and of Depp's performance as Jack Sparrow. Australian actor Brenton Thwaites entered talks for the role of Henry in late November 2014, after Disney chose him over Taron Egerton, George MacKay, Mitchell Hope, Ansel Elgort, and Sam Keeley.

Kaya Scodelario was chosen as the female lead Carina Smyth out of a shortlist that included Gabriella Wilde, Alexandra Dowling, Jenna Thiam, and Lucy Boynton. Scodelario confirmed that she was playing "a totally different character" from Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Swann, and also that she will be Henry's love interest, given in earlier drafts she was envisioned as a love interest of Sparrow. Kevin McNally confirmed his return as Joshamee Gibbs in late January. Adam Brown, Delroy Atkinson, and Danny Kirrane were revealed as cast members shortly before filming. As filming begun, two actors from the previous films were confirmed to return, Martin Klebba as Marty and Stephen Graham as Scrum. Keith Richards previously expressed interest in reprising his role as Captain Teague, but due to Richards being unavailable, Depp invited Paul McCartney to appear as Uncle Jack, Jack Sparrow's uncle and namesake, though the character was named after McCartney's own uncle, John "Jack" McCartney.

Filming

Directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg originally stated that shooting would take place in Puerto Rico and New Orleans, and Bruckheimer had previously mentioned that there might be a sequence in Louisiana. However, a spokesman for Australian Arts Minister George Brandis confirmed that the fifth installment was set to shoot exclusively in Australia after the government agreed to repurpose $20 million of tax incentives, originally intended for the remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; thus edging out Mexico and South Africa as filming locations. Filming took place exclusively in Queensland, Australia, as the largest production to ever shoot in the country. Village Roadshow Studios and the Whitsunday Islands were officially confirmed as filming locations. On January 1, 2015, The Rainbow Gypsy, a 35-year-old replica of an 1897 Scottish trawler, underwent an extensive refit at the Gold Coast, including a new bowsprit, and reconfigured decks and cabins, for filming as the Dying Gull. Its captain and owner, Kit Woodward, was a rigger in the film.

Filming commenced on February 17, 2015. Ship scenes were filmed in front of a giant outdoor greenscreen in Helensvale, while a film set in the form of a village was built in Maudsland. Because the greenscreens' height blocked the sunlight, containers with inflatable bluescreens mounted on top were added to the set to allow some light to enter. While the first script that Paul Cameron read for the film involved "five to six main ships" until a rewrite more than doubled the fleet, and Bruckheimer promised 13 ships facing off in "the biggest battles yet," the end product had eleven vessels; to cut costs, most of these were partial constructs later enhanced by computer graphics, with some built atop a hydraulic rig to mimic the movement of seafaring while on land. The camera crew, led by the director of photography Paul Cameron, also made extensive use of drones, to capture immersive views at sea without resorting to helicopters or cranes.

Filming moved to Doug Jennings Park on the Spit from March 30 to June 15 for water-bound scenes. However, due to extreme sea sickness among the cast and crew from the "big swells," filming moved to Raby Bay for calmer waters. Scenes were shot at Byron Bay on June 1. Locals made up more than 75 percent of the 850-plus crew then working on the film. After much speculation about whether Orlando Bloom would return, Bloom arrived at the Gold Coast in late May to reprise his role as Will Turner. Scenes featuring a skeleton of a sperm whale that had been constructed were shot at Hastings Point from June 21 to 23.

Post-production

Editing was a collaboration between Roger Barton and Leigh Folsom Boyd, with the latter detailing that "Roger started from the beginning of the film and I started from the end, and we kind of met in the middle." Boyd added that it was the longest post-production process she was ever involved with, as Disney wanted to give "the support and leeway we needed to tell the story and allow for the complex visual effects to bake." The editors worked closely with the previsualization team to, according to effects supervisor Gary Brozenich, "give meat to the bones of the plates that needed effects explanation as well as any new CG beats that would be added later." Along with the post-production team in Los Angeles, Brozenich had to split his time going to the UK and Montreal, to check on the eight companies handling the film's 2,000 visual effects shots, with 150 of them consisting only of computer graphics. The primary vendor was Brozenich's own employer Moving Picture Company (MPC). Among MPC's work were Salazar's undead pirates, whose on-set footage was mostly replaced by CGI to achieve missing body parts and floating hair and clothing. Brozenich stated that what was kept of the original actors was "their run, gait and faces." To provide reference for the floating parts, which were meant to resemble a perpetual drowning state, a stuntman in full costume and wig was filmed underwater in a swimming pool performing various actions.

Atomic Fiction handled the scenes at St. Martin, turning the few blocks of buildings built on set into more than 600 CG buildings, surrounded by a jungle environment. The work combined references from both the Caribbean and Thailand, and enhanced through CGI both the guillotine on which Jack Sparrow is nearly executed and the bank from the heist scene; the bank was meant to look as if its foundations were dug through the ground instead of sliding on the surface. Along with sea footage filmed in both the Australian sets and Key West, Florida, there was extensive usage of water simulations, with the artists using the Beaufort scale to ensure the waves and wind realistically matched.

Music

This was the first film in the series (since the first) that Hans Zimmer did not compose the music for. Instead, the main composer is one of his protégés, Geoff Zanelli, who had worked on the previous four installments in the franchise. Zanelli said that Zimmer "redefined the sound of the entire genre" and considered it a great accomplishment to have worked with him and Bruckheimer. He used this experience with the franchise to build a new sound for the film. He stated that "you don't have to modernize the melodies, those are timeless," citing one example of how he tried to make the sound more modern by featuring an electric cello to create a menacing leitmotif for Captain Armando Salazar. This was also the first Pirates of the Caribbean score to feature mostly live percussion, as opposed to the programmed percussion in the prior scores. As it took more than a year for the film to start production following Zanelli being hired, he accompanied the script's evolution, and was familiar with the character arcs that he would need to translate in their theme songs. Zanelli always started writing the music on the piano, namely a synthesized orchestra. The film's soundtrack was released on May 26, 2017.

Marketing

A robust marketing effort helped promote Dead Men Tell No Tales. The film was first showcased at the Disney D23 Expo 2015, where Depp appeared in costume as Jack Sparrow and the film's logo was revealed, with Orlando Bloom confirmed to be starring in the film. A 240-page tie-in prequel novel expanding the backstory of the character Carina Smyth was also released, titled Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales – The Brightest Star in the North: The Adventures of Carina Smyth. The film was showcased at the 2016 Walt Disney Content Showcase in South Africa, where concept art, story details and on-set images were previewed. On April 26, 2017, Depp made a cameo appearance at Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride in an event to promote the film, surprising unsuspecting guests by portraying Jack Sparrow in place of one of the animatronics.

Release

Theatrical

Dead Men Tell No Tales screened on March 28, 2017 at the 2017 CinemaCon event in Las Vegas. It had its world premiere at the Shanghai Disney Resort in Shanghai on May 11, 2017, and was released in the United States on May 26. In some countries, including the United Kingdom, the film was released as Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge, a decision that the directors were not informed about. It is the first Hollywood feature to be released in the United States for the new panorama-like ScreenX format, which played in two locations in the United States, the CGV Buena Park and the CGV Cinemas in Los Angeles. Additionally, it played in 81 screens at select theaters in Korea, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Turkey, and Indonesia. The film also played in 4D on 373 4DX screens worldwide. The film was released in IMAX in an expanded 1.9:1 aspect ratio.

Home media

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales was released on digital download by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on September 19, 2017, and on Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray, and DVD on October 3. It was the top home-media release in its first week, with the Blu-ray version accounting for 78% of sales, and brought the previous four films back into the 25 best-sold Blu-rays.

Terry Rossio's screenplay

Following the film's theatrical release in 2017, Terry Rossio released his unproduced screenplay on his website Wordplay. Also titled Dead Men Tell No Tales, this was a proposed story written with the studio and producer guideline that Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom would not return to the series, and so those characters would not be available. Rossio's draft also included additional information in extensive footnotes. Among other characters, Pintel and Ragetti return from the trilogy, the missionary Philip Swift and mermaid Syrena from On Stranger Tides, with Dead Men Tell No Tales also introducing a female villain, a sea witch named the Sea Widow. The story is Jack Sparrow's race with the Sea Widow to recover the Siren Song from the Mermaid Trove and featured the Trident of Neptune, which contains the three Pearls of Neptune that each have a different power: Rhysis, which commands the winds; Tyrah, pearl of the tides; and Miro, which commands the creatures of the sea. It would also be revealed that Rhysis was hidden twice over inside a sapphire in the hilt of the Sword of Triton, only identified as Blackbeard's or Barbossa's sword in Rossio's script, with the power being revealed to control the wind, as well as a ship's rigging, and would not be used to release the Black Pearl from the bottle.

Rossio's script was discarded in 2012, and the writer stated that a major reason was its use of a female villain, the Sea Widow, which made Johnny Depp "worried that would be redundant to Dark Shadows, which also featured a female villain." As a result, in January 2013, Disney hired Jeff Nathanson to work on a script in the development of the film, which featured the Trident of Poseidon, an artifact that holds all the power of the sea, mainly used in the final version of the story to break every curse and by Will Turner's son Henry to free his father from the Flying Dutchman.

Reception

Box office

With an estimated production budget of $230–320 million, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales grossed $172.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $623.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $795.9 million. It had a worldwide opening of $271.4 million from 55 markets, with $24 million coming from 1,088 IMAX screens. The film's six-day opening gross pushed the franchise gross past the $4 billion mark. Despite being the lowest-grossing film of the series in North America by nearly $70 million and despite scoring the second-lowest nominal gross of the franchise outside North America (only ahead of Curse of the Black Pearl), Dead Men Tell No Tales became the highest-grossing entry of the Pirates franchise outside North America when accounting for foreign-exchange rates, surpassing On Stranger Tides, which grossed $593.4 million at July 2017 rates. The largest-earning foreign markets were China ($172.3 million), Japan ($59.5 million), and Russia and the CIS ($40.7 million), where it was the second-highest-grossing film behind Avatar (2009). Deadline Hollywood noted the film would turn a net profit of around $280 million after factoring together all expenses and revenues based on a projected $850 million final gross (though it would ultimately fall short of that figure, likely resulting in a smaller profit).

Dead Men Tell No Tales debuted over the four-day Memorial Day opening weekend, being released in 4,276 theaters, of which over 3,100 were 3D, taking advantage of formats such as IMAX, D-Box, and 4DX. The film earned $23.4 million on its first day, including $5.5 million from previews. It was the lowest opening day of the franchise. Dead Men Tell No Tales grossed $63 million over three days, and $78.5 million over four (Friday–Monday), finishing first at the box office, ahead of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and fellow newcomer Baywatch (2017). It was the second-smallest opening weekend of the franchise, only earning more than the first film, with each of the other installments earning at least $90 million. Despite the film registering the highest test score in the series, the opening came in well below expectations of $80–115 million. Analysts attributed the underperformance to negative reviews, franchise fatigue, and Johnny Depp's diminishing returns and depreciating public image, amid his personal problems. Still, it performed better than Disney's previous Memorial Day releases (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Tomorrowland (2015), and Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)), and studio executives said they were pleased with the movie's opening, which helped Disney push past $1 billion in the US.

The film fell by a total of 65% in its second weekend, the worst of the series, grossing $22.1 million, and finishing in third place, after newcomers Wonder Woman (2017) ($103.3 million) and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) ($23.9 million). It remained in the top ten for four more weeks.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 30% of 291 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales proves that neither a change in directors nor an undead Javier Bardem is enough to drain this sinking franchise's murky bilge." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 39 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, and PostTrak reported 81% of those gave the film a positive score.

Mike Ryan of Uproxx criticized what he termed as a convoluted plot and overabundance of characters, resulting in a film that was "practically incoherent." Writing for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers called the film "bloated, boring, repetitive, and draining" and gave it one star out of four. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club wrote that the film echoes the first three of the franchise, "in which Johnny Depp's louche and campy Jack Sparrow played second banana to an insipid love story... the two romantic leads ... succeed only in making the shortest movie in the series seem just as long as the rest." A. O. Scott of The New York Times said of the film, "Its pleasures are so meager, its delight in its own inventions so forced and false, that it becomes almost the perfect opposite of entertainment." Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post remarked that the film was "loud, overstimulating and hard to take in all in one sitting." Mick LaSalle of San Francisco Chronicle found the film to be "a jumble of half-baked impulses" that had been forced into a played-out franchise.

Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, saying: "Dead Men works well enough as a stand-alone, swashbuckling comedic spectacle, thanks to the terrific performances, some ingenious practical effects, impressive CGI and a steady diet of PG-13 dialogue peppered with not particularly sophisticated but (I have to admit) fairly funny sexual innuendo." Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood praised the film, calling it "the most entertaining installment," and giving credit to Rønning and Sandberg for creating a "rollicking good time". He praised the visual effects, particularly Salazar and his crew, arguing that the film should be in line to receive an Academy Award for Visual Effects. He also gave high praise to Bardem for being able to create such a "fully dimensional villain" under the layers of make-up and CGI, and Depp for keeping the film and franchise going. Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a 'B', praising the fun nature of the film and its visuals and calling it "gorgeously detailed swashbuckling nonsense," but wished that the script had taken more risks instead of following the formula used in previous films. Ashley Esqueda of CNET gave the film a positive review, arguing that it brought the franchise back to what made its first two installments so fun, and praised Depp's performance as being "delightful as ever." Brian Truitt of USA Today gave the film three stars out of four, saying "What was once a past-its-prime franchise seems to have found new life."

Accolades

At the 38th Golden Raspberry Awards, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales received nominations for Worst Actor for Johnny Depp, Worst Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem, and Worst Screen Combo for Depp and "his worn out drunk routine". Gary Brozenich, Sheldon Stopsack, Patrick Ledda, Richard Clegg, and Richard Little of MPC was nominated for Outstanding Visual Effects – Feature Film at the 2017 Hollywood Post Alliance Awards. The film was nominated for Choice Movie: Action, Choice Movie Actor: Action, Choice Movie Actress: Action, Choice Movie: Villain, Choice Movie: Summer, and Choice Liplock at the 2017 Teen Choice Awards.

Future

On March 4, 2017, directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg stated that Dead Men Tell No Tales was "only the beginning of the final adventure", indicating that it would not be the last film of the franchise and that a sixth film could be released. While the post-credits scene teased a potential plot involving Davy Jones, who appears in some form while Will and Elizabeth sleep, the directors also hinted that it could be the "beginning of the end" or "just a dream or nightmare". In September 2017, producer Jerry Bruckheimer indicated that another Pirates sequel would be possible if Dead Men Tell No Tales did well in its home release. In October 2017, the sixth film was confirmed and Kaya Scodelario said that she was contracted to return. Shortly after, it was reported that Rønning was being eyed to return to direct the sequel. By August 2018, the sixth film was still in development. The following month, Keira Knightley said she did not see herself returning for another installment because she is a mother now and that the films take too long to shoot.

In October 2018, it was reported that Disney had been looking for ways to make a sixth film in the franchise, bringing on Deadpool (2016) writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick to write a reboot though producer Jerry Bruckheimer was expected to return. However, in February 2019, Reese and Wernick departed the project and the project was cancelled. In October 2019, Disney announced that Craig Mazin and Ted Elliott would write the script for the sixth film. In May 2020, Bruckheimer commented that the first draft of the screenplay for the sixth film would soon be finished, although he was not sure if Depp should reprise his role in the film. However, in April 2022, in the midst of the trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, Depp revealed that he had no intention of returning to the franchise, citing his strained relationship with Disney after they had removed him from the franchise before a verdict was reached in the case.

In February 2023, Orlando Bloom expressed interest in returning to the franchise as Will Turner in the sixth film. The next month, Knightley explained to Entertainment Tonight why she would not make a return to the franchise. "What about Elizabeth Swann?" Knightley joked when asked if she would rejoin the crew. "I mean, she sailed away so nicely. She sailed away in brilliant style." Bruckheimer has meanwhile reiterated he would like to have Depp involved in the sequel. In July 2023, it was reported that Depp had softened his stance and was willing to return to the franchise, "If it's the right project". The next month, Mazin stated that he'd pitched a Pirates script to Disney, but that he would only commit to it if he was able to work with Elliot; Mazin confirmed that his and Elliot's script was bought by Disney, also commenting that it was "too weird", but the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike had slowed production of the sixth installment.