Margot Robbie is teaming up with her Birds Of Prey writer Christina Hodson for another big project. It’s not superheroes this time, but pirates.
Robbie will star in a new Pirates Of The Caribbean movie, one that is reportedly separate from the other POTC reboot in the works from Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and longtime franchise scribe Ted Elliot.
Robbie’s film will be a new female-fronted story with new characters that will be presented under the Pirates moniker. Plot details are under wraps right now, but fans have been speculating that Robbie will play Redd, a red-haired wench who was captured by the pirate auctioneer midway through the original Disneyland ride.
This is one of those headlines that makes you mourn for the Hollywood of old. Robbie starring in a film written by her Birds Of Prey writer? Great! But does it have to be Pirates Of The Caribbean? And not only that, one of two POTC reboots? Wouldn’t it be great if that headline replaced Pirates Of The Caribbean with the name of an similarly-budgeted original film?
Even as recently as the 90s, maybe later, that would have been the case. Robbie would have been a star studios would have been coming up with ideas for. They’re still doing that, it’s just that all the ideas are recycled, meaning that even as big of a star as Robbie has to jump onto a huge franchise and live in the shadow of Johnny Depp.
It’s disappointing, but that doesn’t mean the film can’t be good. Birds Of Prey was fun – if a little shackled by its need to undo the problems of Suicide Squad; sensing a pattern here? – and if Robbie and Hodson can find a good angle on this instalment, maybe they can imbue Pirates Of The Caribbean with a freshness it desperately needs.
Hodson has become a bit of a franchise expert over the last few years. She also wrote the Transformers spinoff Bumblebee, as well as upcoming DC movies The Flash and Batgirl. Her and Robbie are also behind the Lucky Exports Pitch Program, an initiative aimed at getting more female writers hired by studios to write action-centric films.
Hopefully their Pirates Of The Caribbean film is good, but more importantly, hopefully it has the box office success that gives them a figurative blank cheque to someday make a big, original film outside of the Hollywood franchise machine.
#Peace.Love.PiratesOfTheCaribbean
