While Margot Robbie talks up the next entry in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, hundreds of thousands of signatories lobby for Johnny Depp to return.
Margot Robbie’s day-one fans have been following her since her time on ABC’s Pan-Am back in 2011, but she really started to take Hollywood by storm after her appearance in 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street. Seven years later, she’s one of the most sought-out actresses in the biz, and she uses her notoriety to promote girl power any chance she gets.
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is a perfect example of a fun movie with group of badass women coming together to take down evildoers. And now, Margot Robbie is bringing that same vibe to the recently announced female-centric Pirates of the Caribbean film.
Now, we don’t know much about the movie yet, but at this point, Robbie’s involvement is enough for us. Speaking with Collider, Robbie said it was “too early” to discuss specifics,” but did promise “lots of girl power.”
"I’m not a producer on Pirates, so I’ll sit back and kind of wait for the process. We’re really, really excited at the prospect of adding obviously a very key female element to that world."
It’s unclear who else will be joining Robbie in this exciting venture, but I think bringing back Kiera Knightley would be terrific. We could call it, Margot Robbie and Her Fantabulous Fem-Pirates.
The franchise can certainly use a fresh take given the last couple of films didn’t live up to the first couple. And of course, previous series frontman Johnny Depp (Jack Sparrow) being caught up in an ongoing abuse scandal involving ex-wife Amber Heard doesn’t help; he was even dropped from the Fantastic Beasts series after he lost a libel case related to the matter.
Speaking of which, regardless of the outcome of his case, Depp fans have started a Change.org petition demanding that he return as Captain Jack Sparrow. So far, over 300,000 people have signed it. This is their plea:
"Johnny Depp has been out recently as Captain Jack Sparrow. One of the reasons is his personal issues as well.He has been playing this role since 2003 when we first saw him arriving at the Port Royal in his boat with that epic background music playing. But can you imagine someone else portraying this instead of him? Or no Jack Sparrow at all?Disney is rebooting Dead Men Tell No Tales because of its box office but don’t they know that without Johnny Depp or Jack Sparrow they will sink, they will never be able to reach that horizon they are looking for."
It’ll be interesting to see if this petition gets any serious attention from people higher up the chain. Given the recent drama surrounding Depp, it seems unlikely.
In the meantime, here’s hoping Robbie can breathe some new life into Pirates of the Caribbean and give it the restart it deserves!
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