Johnny Depp fans are going to have to exercise some additional patience in order to see Captain Jack Sparrow’s latest antics in Pirates of the Caribbean 5 following an extreme release date shuffle by Walt Disney Pictures.
After moving Marvel and Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man release date up from November 2015 all the way to July 31, 2015 on Monday, Disney repositioned another big chess piece by removing the fifth Pirates film, titled Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, from the summer 2015 release slate altogether. It was previously scheduled to wash ashore in early July.
There are numerous probable reasons Disney made the move. According to Deadline, screenwriter Jeff Nathanson has delivered an advanced outline that would have to be used for the start of production in order to meet the summer 2015 slot. In other words, Disney would have to push a mega-budget film into production with indie directors Joachim Roenning and Espen Sandberg manning the project without a completed and polished script in place. The risk was far too great given the stakes.
Disney is still well represented even after removing Pirates of the Caribbean 5 from 2015. Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron is coming in May, followed by Pixar’s Inside Out in June and now Ant-Man in July. There’s also another little film by the name of Star Wars Episode VII that will likely fall somewhere between July and December, with the Pirates move possibly opening the door for Star Wars to take its place.
Johnny Depp will still remain plenty busy even with Captain Jack Sparrow taking an extended shore leave. He currently has Into the Woods and Alice in Wonderland on tap, both of which would be completed before filming began on Pirates 5.
After John Carter and The Lone Ranger slammed Disney with back-to-back big budget flops, pressure is mounting on producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney to right the ship, so to speak, with a franchise that has defied critical reaction and raked in huge earnings with each installment – including over $1 billion worldwide from the fourth film On Stranger Tides.
