Pirates Of The Caribbean fans have threatened to boycott the next installment of the series after being spooked by the rumoured replacement for Johnny Depp as lead.
It was suggested that The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri was being considered by Disney to front the sixth film in the series, although others have rejected this claim.
Seven years have passed since Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge came out as the fifth Pirates movie and there have been continuing suggestions since that a sixth is going to happen.
Faced with the prospect of a Depp-less edition, one fan wrote on X: ‘If it ain’t Depp I ain’t watching.’
They were responding to a post by an account called ‘Unlimited L’s’ which also suggested that Edebiri’s character could be based on the 18th century pirate Anne Bonny – one of the most famous female pirates ever.
Pirates Of The Caribbean fans have been spooked by rumours that Johnny Depp is being replaced for the next movie
Fans were spooked by suggestions that The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri would take over the leading role for a sixth Pirates Of The Caribbean
One fan commented on X: ‘If it ain’t Depp I ain’t watching’
Other Pirates Of The Caribbean fans reacted similarly negatively.
They commented: ‘Nobody will watch this Without Depp. When are they going to learn…
‘Honestly I don’t want any of these, I don’t care about pirates any more if there’s no Depp…
‘Another flop, I’m sure…
‘Disney will never learn…
‘Disney cannot replace Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.. Depp created the roll!’
However, it would appear that many were misunderstanding initial reports.
Claiming to be the original source of the rumour, Daniel Richtman of RPK News, said that there was to be no ‘replacing Depp’, and that Edebiri was rather being considered for a spin-off.
Any prospect of a new Pirates movie involving Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow seems bleak anyway, after the fallout from his court battle with ex-wife Amber Heard.
Disney axed their star man in 2018 shortly before Heard wrote an op-ed implying that her ex was an abuser.
In court in 2022 – giving evidence in his trial when he sued Heard for defamation – Depp said he would never work for Disney again, even if they offered him $300 million.
One proposed spin-off has revolved around the idea of Margot Robbie as the lead, but there were conflicting comments from the actress herself and producer Jerry Bruckheimer with the latter insisting the idea was still ‘alive’ after the Barbie star said it was ‘dead’.
Richtman added that anything involving The Bear’s Irish actress as Anne Bonny is not incompatible with a different spin-off with Robbie coming out at some point.
Bonny formed a dynamic duo with fellow female pirate Mary Read in the early 1700s.
Their capture in 1720 caused a huge stir back in Britain as it was presumed women could not be involved in such a violent, illegal practise.
The pair dressed as men and ‘fought like warriors’ and were part of notorious pirateer Calico Jack Rackam’s crew, which terrorised the seas.
Bonny and Read were referenced in the 1724 book, A General History of the Pyrates, by Charles Johnson – adding to their legend.
As their vanquished opponents lay dying, they would apparently expose their breasts to show that they had been killed by a woman.
Bonny is believed to have been the Irish illegitimate daughter of a lawyer and a maid. She is thought to have been born in Old Head of Kinsale, in County Cork the turn of the 18th century, before moving to the US with her father who would dress her as a boy and call her ‘Andy’.
Some time between 1714 and 1718, Bonny ran off with a sailor to New Providence in the Bahamas where she met Rackam, falling in love with him and having a child with him – which they left with friends in Cuba.
She left her sailor husband to become a pirate, with it said that ‘no one fought more courageously at Rackam’s side’.
Bonny disguised herself as a man on Rackham’s sloop, and only he and eventually Mary Read were privy to her real sex.
Claiming to be the original source of the rumour, Daniel Richtman of RPK News suggested that he had been misrepresented, and that Edebiri was being touted for a spin-off
Edebiri is supposedly being lined up to play Irish pirate Anne Bonny – one of the most famous female pirates ever
Bonny (above) formed a dynamic duo with fellow female pirate Mary Read in the early 1700s
In October 1720, Rackam and his crew were attacked by a sailors captained by Jonathan Barnet under a commission from Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica.
Most of Rackam’s pirates put up little resistance as they were too drunk to fight, but Read and Bonny fought fiercely and managed to hold off Barnet’s troops for a short time.
Bonny was saved from the death penalty as she was pregnant, she was said to have ‘pleaded her belly,’ a rule in English common law that allowed women to be delayed their execution until they gave birth.
Her exact end is unknown, with no record of her death or imprisonment. Historians propose she may have returned to live with her father in the US.
