Swashbucklers argue if ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ can survive without Jack Sparrow

Johnny Depp has made it perfectly clear that no amount of money in the world would be enough to entice him back to Pirates of the Caribbean, and a huge volume of fans have outlined that they’re not interested in returning to the high seas unless he’s involved, but Disney is nonetheless forging ahead with two brand new projects.

A sixth installment in the main timeline and a Margot Robbie-led spinoff are both in active development behind the scenes, which creates a curious scenario. Depp’s Jack Sparrow has undoubtedly always been the biggest draw and main selling point of the multi-billion dollar brand, but can Pirates of the Caribbean thrive without him?

The mythology established in Gore Verbinski’s original trilogy grew increasingly dense to the point of becoming occasionally impenetrable, but it’s clear there’s a whole wide world out there ready to be explored with or without Captain Jack. There’s definitely plenty more worth mining from the lore, but Redditors aren’t exactly in agreement over whether or not Depp-less adventures are a worthwhile endeavor.

Star Wars, Jurassic Park, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men, Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth, Transformers, and the Wizarding World are just a few of the big-name properties to have carried on and continued making bank after phasing out the majority of the original cast, but a common thread is that at least a couple of legacy players have remained on board to carry the torch.

Pirates of the Caribbean has provided action, romance, epic naval battles, mysticism, magic, the supernatural, and plenty of other disparate elements across its five-film existence, but it remains contentious to even suggest that more feature films, offshoots, or even Disney Plus shows are capable of succeeding without Depp’s iconic hero.