Rumors Suggest Johnny Depp Could Get $90 Million for Pirates 5

It's no secret that the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has been on the decline since, oh, Curse of the Black Pearl, but that doesn't stop Disney from continuing to crank them out. I'll be honest, I enjoyed myself quite enough with parts 2 and 3 to support this decision initially, but On Stranger Tides was an embarrassingly awful waste of two hours. I mean, seriously, movies that bad just make me angry. That dreadful vaccuum of time you'll never get back did, however, make a billion dollars at the global box office which, on a budget of $250 million, means they made a nice profit.

The first film started with a large, risky $140 million. Back in 2003, that was a big budget for a new kind of film. I won't call it original exactly since it does take its basic inspiration from the beloved ride, but it was back when studios actually let creative people do creative things and gave them money to do so. Oh, how I miss that. But I digress. The film was a massive hit and director Gore Verbinski was given $300 million to make two sequels back to back. Well, Gore may be a great filmmaker, but he's not always the best about staying on budget and ended up spending $215 million on part 2, and (tied for the most expensive film of all time) $300 million on part 3.

After the not-so-successful hey, let's film (TWO MOVIES) without a finished script approach of the sequels, Gore Verbinski decided to leave the series and Rob Marshall directed the fourth film with a $250 million dollar budget. $40 million of that went right into Johnny Depp's pocket. Where the rest of that went, I couldn't tell you. That movie looks like shit. I've seen stuff shot on I-Phones that looks more professional than the quality of that mess. At least they were consistent, though, with the let's make everything as shitty as possible approach. If that was their goal, that was a very successful film.

If you see a $300 million budget for part 5, don't be too surprised. If these (very unsubstantiated) rumors are correct, Depp is en route to make a whopping $90 million off of it. How that makes any financial sense is anyone's guess. Can Disney really intend to give him more than half of the budget of the first film in the series? I mean, really, let's take a look at that, shall we?

Based on the way studio-theater splits work, a $90 million film needs to make no less than $180 million at the box office to basically break even, and that's not even taking marketing into consideration. In reality, films for the most part aren't profitable until they make 2.5 times their budget back. So, when we're talking about paying one actor $90 million for one film, that means his presence in the film alone needs to be worth basically $200 million. Even if you do have a massively successful franchise, what the hell kind of fiscal sense does that make? You tell me.

Of course, we have no reliable source reporting such a crazy figure is actually in talks. Perhaps Depp's publicist is trying to get talks for a big raise going. You know, because Johnny Depp, a man worth more than $300 million, really needs more money. Last we heard, the first script for Pirates 5 has been scrapped and they started over from scratch, but the project is certainly not dead. Watch out for a Pirates 5 within the next two years regardless of how much Depp is actually getting paid.