Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise has grossed some $3.73 billion worldwide to date, over the course of four installments. However, what with nearly six years having passed since the last movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, hit theaters - grossing over $1 billion around the globe, despite earning the weakest reviews for a Pirates movie yet - and Johnny Depp's starpower having diminished due to several underperforming lead vehicles (in combination with controversy around his personal life), the swashbuckling adventure property could use some sprucing up, if it is to continue to thrive.
Enter this year's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, a film described as something of a soft reboot for the franchise. With Depp appearing as Captain Jack Sparrow alongside Orlando Bloom as Will Turner (who didn't appear in On Stranger Tides) and some big franchise newcomers, Dead Men Tell No Tales is comparable to a movie such as Fast & Furious; in that it aims to breathe fresh life into the franchise, without completely wiping the board clean in the process. Disney has in turn released a Super Bowl LI preview for Dead Men Tell No Tales, to further ensure that it's a successful franchise revival, too.
The Dead Men Tell No Tales Super Bowl trailer, which you can now watch online (see above), is only the second preview released for the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, after the theatrical teaser trailer that was unveiled last year. This preview dives a little deeper into the storyline for Captain Jack's next adventure, confirming that the film's undead villain, one Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) is indeed out to kill every living buccaneer on the high seas - now that he and his crew have escaped from the mysterious Devil's Triangle.
While Captain Jack himself doesn't appear until the end of the Super Bowl trailer for Dead Men Tell No Tales, we get our first brief look here at Bloom back as Will. Unsurprisingly, now that he has assumed the "job" of being Davy Jones, Will is covered in far more barnacles that moviegoers are used to seeing him with (though, as Will is presumably still doing his job of ferrying the dead, he shouldn't go full squid-beard, like his predecessor). Most of the Dead Men Tell No Tales Super Bowl preview instead focuses on Salazar as he wreaks havoc across the oceans of the world, inspiring terror in even Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) - a fellow who isn't rattled so easily, after having once died himself.
There's no clear sight of Brenton Thwaites as Henry - the young Royal Navy sailor who joins forces with Jack to stop Salazar - in the Super Bowl trailer for Dead Men Tell No Tales, but that's to be expected; seeing as the teaser trailer for the film already showed how Henry and Salazar cross paths for the first time. Kaya Scodelario, however, does make an appearance in the Super Bowl preview, as we see her fleeing Salazar and his pirates as they (literally) run on water. Scodelario costars in the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie as Carina Smyth: an astronomer with the knowledge that Jack needs to find the one thing that can stop Salazar - the Trident of Poseidon.
It remains to be seen, of course, if directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg are actually successful in their efforts to keep the Pirates of the Caribbean "brand" going strong as ever with Dead Men Tell No Tales. If nothing else though, the Super Bowl LI trailer ought to do its part to get the moviegoing masses excited about getting to set sail with Captain Jack one more (last?) time.
NEXT: Watch Every Super Bowl LI Trailer
Source: Walt Disney Pictures
