In an era where Hollywood is defined by the successful film franchise, no studio has found more success than Disney. Having said that, outside of Marvel and Star Wars, the franchises the studio purchased, the only live-action franchise success Disney has actually found success with that is 100% homegrown is Pirates of the Caribbean. And much of that success is laid at the feet of one Captain Jack Sparrow.
It’s hard to understate the way Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow became a cinematic icon overnight. The performance was unlike anything we had seen before. Of course, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing at the time. Jerry Bruckheimer recently told Deadline that when he first saw what Depp had come up with, he didn’t think Disney would ever accept it. He said…
It was interesting, but oh my God, what are we going to do here? That part was written for a Burt Lancaster. It wasn’t written with the humor. I said, ‘How are we going to get this past Disney?’
The story behind the creation of Captain Jack Sparrow has been talked about before over the years. The character, as Bruckheimer indicates, was originally seen as a more traditional heroic leading man, making Depp’s idea to find inspiration in Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards a significant curveball, to say the least.
Depp himself has said he thought then Disney CEO Michael Eisner would fire him when he heard Disney wasn't happy with what the actor was doing. Bruckheimer says that they were able to get Depp to tone down some of his ideas. Then, they showed the studio what Depp was actually doing, and moods improved. Bruckheimer continued…
And then we had meetings with them, and he had all these gold teeth he wanted to put in. We finally convinced Johnny to take some of the gold teeth out, but they really didn’t know what he was going to do. And when the dailies came in, they said, ‘Oh my God, we got to switch actors. This is not going to work. Is he gay? Is he drunk? What is going on here?’ So what we did is, we cut a sequence together and showed him off and why it worked. Once they saw that, they kind of went along with the ride for us, with us.
In the end, Disney is certainly glad it went along for the ride. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a massive hit, which has since spawned four additional films. It’s no wonder that despite the fact that we haven’t seen a new entry in the franchise in eight years, Disney has continued to work on multiple ideas for a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
The big question is whether or not that entry will include Captain Jack Sparrow. Disney had previously indicated the franchise was in line to be rebooted without Johnny Depp, following the actor's troubled legal issues. However, as time has passed, rumors of Depp’s potential return have continued to circulate. Most recently, Jerry Bruckheimer himself has indicated there are two different scripts for a future Pirates movie currently being considered, one that includes Jack Sparrow and one that does not.
Whether or not we see Jack Sparrow again, there’s no denying the character’s importance.
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