Orlando Bloom claims Pirates 5 may be a reboot

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

The Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the most successful film franchises of all time – as well as being some of the most expensive movies ever made – but the last two instalments, At World’s End and On Stranger Tides, were both critically panned, each replacing swashbuckling fun with bloated grandeur. According to original Pirates star Orlando Bloom, who played Will Turner in the first three films, says that with the fifth movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the franchise may be getting a reboot – at least in some form or other. ‘Basically they want to reboot the whole franchise, I think, and do something with me and the relationship with my son,’ he told IGN, ‘I’m of course Davey Jones now, so I’m down the bottom of the ocean. It might be kind of fun to do something where I’m rumbling round the bottom of the ocean, because I won’t look anything like me.’ So from what we can tell, Dead Men Tell No Tales may end up being a reboot in the sense that it concerns a host of new characters, fresh protagonists on new and exciting adventures. But it will most likely be set in the same ‘universe’ or ‘world’ as the first four films, as Johnny Depp will be reprising his career-exploding role as Captain Jack Sparrow. This is known in the biz as a ‘soft’ reboot. While we’ll be seeing a familiar face in the form of Depp, the directors  Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg will be new to the voyages of the Black Pearl, who both directed Kon Tiki, also a high seas adventure of maritime peril. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is due for a 2017 release.