Margot Robbie's Pirates of the Caribbean Reboot Charts a New Course — Here's Why It's Delayed

Quick update from the high seas: Jerry Bruckheimer says the Margot Robbie Pirates of the Caribbean project is not dead, just stuck in that classic Hollywood holding pattern where everyone nods until there is an actual script.

'She’s still involved.'

'We’re working on a script. If we don’t have it on the page, it’s not gonna get on the screen.'

Bruckheimer dropped the status check at TheWrap’s TheGrill 2025 conference, and it sounds like the franchise is still charting its course after a few years of drift.

Where things stand

• Margot Robbie’s Pirates idea is alive. Bruckheimer was clear that Robbie remains attached to the in-development take that was pitched as a female-focused entry. Christina Hodson was the original writer on that version.
• The franchise had two new movies on the board for a while: Robbie’s film and a Pirates of the Caribbean 6 designed as a soft reboot. According to Bruckheimer, they had two scripts going, one fell away, and they pushed ahead with the other.
• On Pirates 6 specifically, longtime series writer Ted Elliott worked on that script, and Bruckheimer says another writer has since been brought in to fill in the blanks. Translation: still tinkering.
• Why the delay? The short answer is the script. Bruckheimer says they will not move until the screenplay is right. Hollywood 101, but especially true here.
• He also called Pirates the hardest franchise on his plate to continue, even after shepherding legacy sequels like Top Gun: Maverick and Bad Boys: Ride or Die. In his words, the world is so cool and specific that they have to find the right way in.
• There are no release dates for any new Pirates movies yet. Nothing is on the calendar.

If the back-and-forth sounds a little inside baseball, that is because it is. At one point Disney and Bruckheimer were juggling two separate paths forward, then consolidated. Elliott’s fingerprints on Pirates 6 suggest that is the one getting active work right now, but Robbie’s project is clearly not being tossed overboard. It is more like they are waiting for the right wind to actually move either ship.