Johnny Depp says he wanted to play Jack Sparrow again to give the pirate a ‘proper goodbye’

Johnny Depp says he was more than willing to play his legendary character Jack Sparrow in another Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The actor shared the news during his fourth day of testimony in his defamation trial against his former wife, Amber Heard.

According to Depp, Disney approached him in 2018 to take part in writing a script for a sixth Pirates movie. The actor claims that Disney moved away from having him attached to the project after Heard’s December 2018 op-ed where she implied that she experienced domestic abuse when married to him. 

Depp denies Heard's allegations and claims Disney nixing his involvement in another Pirates of the Caribbean movie stemmed from her statements. He is currently seeking $50 million in damages. 

“My feeling was that these characters should be able to have their proper goodbye,” Depp testified (via Variety). “There’s a way to end a franchise like that … I planned on continuing until it was time to stop.”

Since 2018, Depp has said that he wouldn’t do another Pirates movie for “$300 million and a million alpacas.” When asked about that in court, Depp said that he made the comment after Disney had fired him. 

Depp’s Jack Sparrow is one of the centerpieces of Disney’s successful Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Before parting ways with Depp, the studio made five Pirates movies with him, from 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl to 2017’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The first five movies in total made almost $1.5 billion worldwide. 

A sixth Pirates movie fizzled out in 2019 after Disney fired Depp and Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick left the project as well. As of a year ago, however, Disney was reportedly working on a new Pirates movie with Margot Robbie attached.