Johnny Depp says he planned to end Jack Sparrow’s story before the 2018 op-ed

In between the never-ending flood of news concerning Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against his former wife, the Pirates of the Caribbean actor has said he had an ending mapped out for Jack Sparrow that may now never see the light of day.

Much to the dismay of the fandom, after it was revealed that Depp doesn’t intend to return to the Pirates franchise even if Disney offered him $300 million, the star went on to reveal during his testimony that he’s never seen Pirates of the Caribbean because he doesn’t watch his own films.

At one point during the trial, Depp also dropped another bombshell by letting everyone know that prior to the publication of the controversial 2018 op-ed penned by Amber Heard, in which she describes herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse” (without explicitly mentioning Depp by name), the Mouse House actually approached him for help co-writing the upcoming sixth installment in the Pirates 6 franchise. More interesting still, Depp says that the movie was supposed to conclude Jack Sparrow’s story.

“A franchise can only last so long, and there’s a way to end a franchise like that,” he said on Monday. “I thought the characters should have a way out, to end the franchise on a very good note, and I planned on continuing until it was time to stop.”

It looks as though if it weren’t for the controversial article, on which this entire defamation trial is based, we would definitely have gotten a Pirates of the Caribbean 6 with Johnny returning as Captain Jack Sparrow one last time.

Almost immediately after the publication, Disney cut all ties with the Pirates star and decided to take the franchise down a different path, though according to Depp, the movie series is now in “dangle mode” and even the industry juggernaut is unsure how to proceed without the iconic main lead.

In fairness, the character of Captain Jack Sparrow and his quirkiness essentially made the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, so it’s of little wonder that they haven’t managed to come up with anything compelling since then.

Besides his reputation, the actor probably has a lot of prospective career roles riding on the outcome of this trial, though a reconciliation with Disney seems highly unlikely at this point, especially after Depp made it clear that he doesn’t want to work with them anymore.

Correction April 27 11:26am CT: The third paragraph of the story was corrected to more accurately reflect the content of Heard’s op-ed. WGTC regrets the error.