Bruckheimer on Pirates 2 and 3

Jerry Bruckheimer was brief in what he revealed about the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. The one big note was that Keith Richards is not in fact signed to play Johnny Depp’s character’s father. “We don’t have him yet,” Bruckheimer said.

He does still plan to make Pirates 2 and 3 simultaneously if possible. “We’d like to. If Disney will write a check, we’ll do it.”

Of course, that schedule has only worked once, with the Lord of the Rings films. Other series, like The Matrix and Back to the Future found diminishing returns for forcing two sequels at the same time.

“We hope that we can do it as well as Lord of the Rings did it. That’s what you shoot for. You only learn through making mistakes, so we’ll watch what Back to the Future did and Matrix did and hopefully not repeat what they did.”

Bruckheimer’s confidence is pinned on the talent from the original film. “We have the same team that did the first one and hopefully we can have the same success. It’s the same two writers who rewrote the first one and same director, same three actors initially and we’re negotiating with the rest of them, so hopefully we’ll get everybody back.”

Production is expected to begin in March. Bruckheimer has a subtitle for the second entry, and he wouldn’t reveal it, though he confirmed it is not “Treasures of the Lost Abyss” as suggested on IMDB.