Johnny Depp is in discussions to reprise his iconic role as Captain Jack Sparrow in a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film, according to The Guardian.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer confirmed that conversations are underway, telling Deadline that the team is working on a screenplay and hopes to bring Depp back to the long-running Disney franchise. The development marks a significant shift after Depp famously testified in 2022 that he would not return to the role even if Disney offered him “$300 million and a million alpacas”, according to The Guardian.

Depp first appeared as the eccentric pirate captain in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003. The film, inspired by Disney’s theme park attraction, became a global hit, earning more than $650 million at the worldwide box office and establishing Captain Jack Sparrow as one of cinema’s most recognisable characters.

The franchise went on to produce four sequels between 2006 and 2017. Two of those films surpassed the $1 billion mark globally, while the series has generated more than $4.5 billion in total. The most recent instalment, Dead Men Tell No Tales, was released in 2017 and grossed nearly $800 million despite receiving mixed reviews.

Depp’s absence from the franchise followed a series of high-profile legal battles that affected his Hollywood career. In 2020, he lost a libel case in the United Kingdom after The Sun described him as a “wife-beater”, with the court ruling that the allegation was substantially true. The verdict led Warner Bros to ask Depp to resign from the Fantastic Beasts franchise during production of its third film.

Two years later, a US jury ruled in Depp’s favour in his defamation case against former wife Amber Heard, concluding that she had defamed him through a Washington Post opinion piece in which she identified herself as a public figure representing domestic abuse.

Since then, Depp has gradually returned to acting. He portrayed King Louis XV in the 2023 French-language historical drama Jeanne du Barry and later voiced a character in the animated film Johnny Puff: Secret Mission. His next major release is Ebenezer, directed by Ti West, in which he plays Scrooge. The film is scheduled for release in the UK and US this November.

If negotiations with Disney are successful, the sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film would mark Depp’s first return to the blockbuster franchise in nearly a decade.