Disney Developing Female-Fronted ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’

While it’s unclear who asked for it, Disney is reportedly developing a new female-fronted Pirates of the Caribbean that will be written by screenwriter Christina Hodson and will star actress Margot Robbie.

Plot details for the project have yet to be revealed. The film, though, is not expected to be a spinoff of the original franchise, but rather, an original story with new characters, according to a report by the Hollywood Reporter. The report added that Disney has been trying to come up with ways to revive the Pirates brand, given that the original franchise has previously garnered so much revenue over the years.

But one cannot be too sure as to how successful this new project will be, given that Hodson and Robbie’s last all-female project together — the 2020 superhero film Birds of Prey — bombed at the box office. “Margot Robbie stars as the cosplay favorite Harley Quinn in a movie that plays at provocation but declines to provoke anything like a thought,” reported the New York Times.

Moreover, Birds of Prey had arrived — and flopped — on the heels of other all-female remakes of films, such as the 2016 remake of Ghostbusters, and the 2019 remake of Terminator — two other female-fronted films that bombed in the box office.

“Terminator: Dark Fate is not only tanking at the stateside box office, it’s also tanking overseas,” reported Breitbart News’ John Nolte in 2019.

But past all-female flops doesn’t appear to be stopping Hodson and Robbie from dreaming big, as the two have also started a new initiative called “the Lucky Exports Pitch Program,” which seeks to get more women — as well as “female-identifying” — writers hired by studios to write action movies.

The new female-fronted  Pirates will be a separate entity from the popular film series’ reboot that is being developed by Pirates writer Ted Elliott and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, noted the Hollywood Reporter.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.