Margot Robbie To Star In Female-Led Pirates of the Caribbean Reboot

Margot Robbie is set to star in a female-led Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

The 29-year-old actress will take on the lead role in the new female-fronted Disney movie, which is being written by Christina Hodson, whom Robbie previously worked with for her female-led DC Comics flick Birds of Prey.

Plot details for the new movie are being kept under wraps, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, the production is not intended to be a spin-off of the long-running franchise that starred Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, but instead will be an entirely new story with original characters.

The movie will also be completely separate from the already announced reboot of the popular franchise, that has original Pirates writer Ted Elliott and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin developing the story.

Longtime Pirates producer Jerry Bruckheimer is attached to produce both reboots. It's unclear whether Depp will still be in the picture(s).

The Pirates franchise began with the Walt Disney theme park attraction of the same name, from which the movie series gets its name and draws inspiration. The original movie saga ran for five flicks between 2003 and 2011, grossing over US$4.5 billion (S$6.3 bil).

For Robbie and Hodson, the partnership comes several months after they co-launched a script-writing program for women interested in breaking into the action movie world.

Hodson said of the Lucky Exports Pitch Program: "Margot and I share a passion for championing female voices and feel that one way to do that is to connect these writers with a wide array of experts in big-budget filmmaking — men and women alike."

As of the time of writing, there is no release date scheduled for the female-led Pirates film, and it is said to still be in the early development stages.— BANG