Depp is ready to wave goodbye to his Pirates gig.
Cinema Blend reports that Johnny Depp may be hard to keep on board for the fourth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, and is almost definitely out of any further films in the series. Apparently Depp was hard hit by the recent departure of Disney exec Dick Cook, someone he deemed trustworthy (not a common commodity in Hollywood). The loss of Cook made Depp say, ““There’s a fissure, a crack in my enthusiasm at the moment” for the project.
Did he love Dick Cook that much, or is he using this as an opportunity to land one more giant paycheck before checking out of the franchise? CB seems to think that Depp might be persuaded to stay around for the fourth film if Disney tosses buckets of gold at him–sort of the equivalent of a team signing an athlete at an inflated price for one year rather than signing him for an extended contract with a lower yearly salary. At this point, Depp is so far in, he might as well hold Disney up for as much cash as possible before getting out; it’s not like this movie would hurt his reputation any more than the last two.
If Depp departs, they’ll have to come up with a new character, not recast Captain Jack. The captain’s brother? Yikes. It’s always hard to replace an original, whether with a new character or the old one. Just ask Jason Bateman about how much “Teen Wolf, Too” did for his career.
