Disney Must Resurrect Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow

The Walt Disney Company is being forced to bring back actor Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow in their massively commercial franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean.

Johnny Depp has not been in a high-profile movie since 2018. His turn as the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts The Crimes of Grindelwald 2018, came just before the infamous libel trial at the London High Court where Justice Andrew Nicol found claims of domestic abuse against his ex-wife Amber Heard “substantially true.”

This paved the way for The Sun, executive editor Dan Wootton, and parent company, News Group Newspapers LTD, to win the libel case Depp had levied against them.

The feud between Depp and Heard began years and years ago. Following their meeting on the set of The Rum Diary 2011, the pair married in 2015 but divorced just a year later. What followed was a series of domestic abuse allegations from both parties, ultimately culminating in last year’s high-profile defamation lawsuit in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Presided over by Judge Penney Azcarate, the 150 million six-week defamation suit ended with the jury primarily siding with Depp the prolific actor was ordered to pay damages to Heard based on defaming comments made by his then-lawyer Adam Waldman, finding that Heard did defame the actor in her 2018 Op-Ed in The Washington Post — an essay which now comes with a disclaimer due to the trial outcome.

Despite Depp’s win over Heard, both Warner Bros. Discovery and The Walt Disney Company, the owners of the star’s two biggest franchises, Fantastic Beasts and Pirates of the Caribbean, have not brought Depp back into the fold. Instead, the beloved actor has been pretty much shut out of the entertainment industry his last movie was Minimata 2020, almost three years ago.

Interestingly, Minimata was featured — and won — in the Oscars’ controversial audience vote categories, proving that the JusticeForJohnnyDepp crowd is still a loud and prominent force online.

So while there is still a question mark over his revival as Captain Jack Sparrow in the billion-dollar Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, a bold new statement is forcing the House of Mouse to bring back the fan-favorite star.

Depp’s next movie, the French period drama Jeanne du Barry 2023, is set to open the iconic and industry-leading Cannes Film Festival. The movie comes from director and actress Maïwenn, who also stars as the eponymous Madame du Barry, and features Depp as controversial French monarch King Louis XV.