You best start believing in ghost stories, dear reader, as a new rumor suggests that not only are Disney’s plans for a female-led entry in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise back from the dead, but that the House of Mouse is already eyeing one of its lead star.
This latest whisper was first brought to the surface courtesy of a February 4th post made by noted scooper Daniel ‘DanielRPK’ Richtman to his personal Patreon account.
According to Richtman, as relayed from behind the paywall by The Hollywood Handle, plans for the film have not only been revived, but at current, Disney is supposedly looking to cast The Bear star Ayo Edebiri as a character simply-referred to as Anne.
(While it’s possible that this character will be a version of historical Irish swashbuckler Anne Bonny – and, if portrayed by Edebiri, a race-swapped incarnation at that – Richtman did not provide any positive or negative evidence to the matter.)
Further, in addition to Edebiri, Richtman also claimed that Disney is currently looking to cast a ‘younger’ crew of pirates to lead the adventure, which is currently being described as a hunt for a hidden treasure.
Notably, this development comes as somewhat of a surprise given the aforementioned fact that the female Pirates of the Caribbean film was previously buried at sea by its formerly-attached lead actress Margot Robbie.
Speaking to Vanity Fair in late 2022, the Barbie star revealed that despite the studio’s best efforts, the entire project had ultimately run aground.
“We had an idea and we were developing it for a while, ages ago, to have more of a female-led—not totally female-led, but just a different kind of story—which we thought would’ve been really cool,” recalled Robbie, “but I guess they don’t want to do it.”
However, despite its then-shelving, franchise producer Jerry Bruckheimer still continued to hold out hope that the film would someday see the light of day.
“I think that that script will come forward at a certain point,” the producer told Collider in December 2022. “We developed two different stories for Pirates and the other one’s going forward first. So that’s what we’re working on, to try to get that one made.”
First announced as in production in June 2020, the now-dead film would have seen Birds of Prey scribe Christina Hodson tell a brand new story completely unrelated to either the original series or its iconic protagonist, Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow.
Details regarding the project’s development were kept tight-lipped, but what is known is that, as previously detailed by Robbie herself, the film would have featured “a lot of girl power”.
“We’re really, really excited at the prospect of kind of adding a very key female element to that world,” the star told Collider in a since-deleted interview with the outlet given in November 2020.
As of writing, Disney has yet to offer any official comment regarding Richtman’s scoop.