Johnny Depp has revealed that he once had a "very good" ending mapped for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
The Jack Sparrow actor has been reflecting a lot on the swashbuckling Disney movies recently, as his ongoing defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard continues in Fairfax, Virginia.
"A franchise can only last so long, and there's a way to end a franchise like that," he said on Monday, April 25. "I thought the characters should have a way out, to end the franchise on a very good note, and I planned on continuing until it was time to stop."
Depp – who appeared in The Curse of the Black Pearl and its follow-ups Dead Man's Chest (2006), At World's End (2007), On Stranger Tides (2011), and Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) – went on to say that Pirates is now very much in "dangle mode", as Disney tries to work out how it wants to proceed with the sequels.
Wherever they take the franchise in the future, Depp won't be involved. The 58-year-old previously stated that he wouldn't be interested in reprising the role as rum-drinking marauder Jack Sparrow, even if Disney offered him "$300 million and a million alpacas".
"Captain Jack Sparrow was a character that I had built from the ground up and was something that I put a lot of – you put a lot of yourself into characters," he began.
"Having worked on those films with those people, and having put a lot of my own rewriting, dialogue, scenes, and jokes and whatever they are," Depp continued, "I didn't quite understand how, after that long relationship, and quite a successful relationship, certainly for Disney, that suddenly I was guilty until proven innocent."
Prior to the abuse claims she made in an op-ed published in December 2018, Heard first publicly accused Depp of domestic violence when she filed a restraining order against him in 2016. Depp has alleged that "there was not a molecule of truth" in Heard's accusations.
Just a few months before the couple's divorce was settled in 2017, Depp agreed to pay Heard $7 million – which she promised to donate to charity – and the pair issued a joint statement that assured "neither party has made false accusations for financial gain."
Since then, Depp has sued Heard, claiming that she was the abuser and that her accusations against him have negatively affected his working relationships with major studios like Disney. Heard countersued Depp in August 2020.
