Pirates of the Caribbean reboot on the way from The Last of Us writer, calls it "weird"

Craig Mazin is a busy, busy man. Alongside Neil Druckmann, Mazin is a writer and showrunner on HBO’s major hit The Last of Us but it sounds as if he’s got another project up his sleeve.

We’re still waiting for any kind of significant news on The Last of Us’ second season. Due to the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) strikes, production has ground to a halt, but Mazin has been drip feeding us tiny tidbits of information. We know that The Last of Us is likely to go on for around four seasons, with Mazin also warning that it’s now grown unlikely the show will hit its originally planned season two filming date. He did hint that Abby had been cast though, without explicitly saying those words but a new report confirms that an actress has been given the role. Outside of his work on The Last of Us, Mazin is seemingly attempting to reboot the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

It may be time for another The Last of Us binge.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a franchise I love a lot, but there’s no denying that it has dwindled in momentum in recent years. On Stranger Tides and Dead Men Tell No Tales are by no means bad films, but those instalments do lack some of the magic that came from having Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and Elizabeth Swann on screen together in the original trilogy. That’s why I personally was so excited when Dead Men Tell No Tales’ mid-credits scene appeared to tease the return of Will and Davy Jones into the main fold.

Since then though, we’ve heard nothing. Of course, Johnny Depp came under fire during his various libel trials against ex-wife Amber Heard prompting ‘will he/won’t he’ conversations as to whether he’ll reprise his role as Jack - and whether Disney will even want him to. Margot Robbie was then set to lead a spin-off film but that hasn’t quite managed to get off the ground either. Mazin has reportedly pitched an idea though and Disney seems pretty keen.

He told the LA Times that he and writer Ted Elliot (who co-wrote The Curse of the Black Pearl) pitched a “weird” story. He said, “We pitched it and thought there's no way they're buying it, it's too weird. And they did! And then he wrote a fantastic script and the strike happened and everyone's waiting around." It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this.