Johnny Depp Hopes for Success as Filming Begins on Fifth Pirate Movie

After a string of disappointing outings at the box office, Johnny Depp may be trying to revive his career by revisiting one of his most popular characters—Captain Jack Sparrow.

Depp’s role as Tonto in The Lone Ranger unfortunately left fans of the iconic Western feeling underwhelmed and unfortunately it did the same for the studio. With a production budget of $215 million, the movie only managed to gross $89 million domestically. Since then, Depp’s movies, Transcendence, Tusk and Mortdecai, also flopped at the box office.

But the actor may be hoping things are turning around for him. Earlier this month he married actress Amber Heard in a private ceremony at their home in Los Angeles. And now production has begun on Jerry Bruckheimer’s latest swashbuckling adventure movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. The sequel, scheduled to release in July 2017, will film entirely at Village Roadshow Studios and on locations in Queensland, Australia.

In the story, Captain Sparrow, like Depp, is a little down on his luck. But bad turns even worse when his old nemesis Captain Salazar (played by Oscar winner Javier Bardem) escapes from Devil’s Triangle with a determination to kill every pirate at sea—including Sparrow.

The blockbuster pirate franchise has already nabbed $3.7 billion at the worldwide box office and filmmakers are hoping this fifth installment will continue the film series’ success. Along with producing all four previous Pirates of the Caribbean films, some of Bruckheimer’s other movie credits include Top Gun, Remember the Titans, Black Hawk Down, National Treasure, Pearl Harbor and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.