Last week, Johnny Depp made an appearance at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, to promote his turn as Scrooge in Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol.

The Daily Express was in attendance, as we were, for a panel discussion without him featuring Pirates of the Caribbean 6 producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

It’s been a decade since the Jack Sparrow star filmed the last swashbuckling outing. Since then, he’s slowly but surely been making his return to Hollywood blockbusters after winning his libel case against his ex-wife Amber Heard.

During the interview, The Town’s Matt Belloni asked Bruckheimer if the process for getting movies green-lit in 2026 is much slower than 10, 20 years ago, to which the youthful 82-year-old producer replied, “At certain place yes.” And then Pirates came up.

The host asked: “Why is there no Pirates movie happening? I’ve talked about this for a decade.” Bruckheimer humbly replied: “That’s us, not on them. We went through three different managements with three different versions of what they thought a Pirate movie was. So, I think now there’s a management that is settled in and working very closely at getting it done.” Belloni said: “There was a Margot Robbie version [in development], there’s a bringing back Johnny [one]. So you’re confident that will be green-lit soon?” The producer teased: “We’ve got to give them a script, it’s on us.”

A couple of months ago, Bruckheimer confirmed to Entertainment Tonight that he’d had conversations with Robbie. And when asked if it was more her spin-off than a rumoured Jack Sparrow son adventure in the works, he replied cryptically: “I think you’re going up the right road.” As it stands we’re none the wiser on if Depp’s Sparrow would co-star, cameo, let alone feature at all in Pirates of the Caribbean 6. But what will concern fans is that it may all now be put back on the backburner as Bruckheimer’s other baby Top Gun 3 has been officially green-lit. At the very least the script is being written, so hopefully Pirates 6 will be his main focus afterwards.