Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides made about $1.05 billion worldwide in theaters back in 2011, so you'd best believe that Walt Disney Pictures is interested in making Pirates of the Caribbean 5 (a.k.a. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales). The Mouse House recently set the swashbuckling blockbuster for a Summer 2017 release date and began to hammer out a deal that will allow the movie to be shot in Australia at a lower cost than would be required to film elsewhere.

Johnny Depp is lined up to reprise his famous role as pirate Captain Jack Sparrow in the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film installment, but beyond that there've been nothing but rumors about who the other cast members could be. Geoffrey Rush is expected, but not confirmed, to return as Jack's frenemy Hector Barbossa - and now, Orlando Bloom has indicated that he could also return to the high-seas franchise for the next movie. Here are the comments he made while attending the Oz Comic-Con, when asked if he will return to the Pirates series for the latest installment (via Yahoo! Movies):

"There have certainly been some discussions about it and I'm open to it. That whole experience working with Johnny and (director) Gore (Verbinski) was really amazing for me. I had a great time working with Johnny, one of the reasons I jumped at the opportunity was because Johnny was involved. I was such a massive fan of Johnny Depp growing up so to get up close and personal to Johnny and see how he worked as an actor was just a massive gift."

Bloom played the blacksmith (and the son of the pirate Bill "Bootstraps" Turner) Will Turner in the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, before he (SPOILER ALERT?) took over from Davy Jones as the captain of the Flying Dutchman at the conclusion of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. That movie also included a post-credits scene that, according to the film's writers, suggests that Will is now free of his duty as the captain of the Dutchman. That could easily be made canon, but it depends on how Will is integrated into the story for Pirates of the Caribbean 5... assuming Bloom does come back, that is. There's also the question of how Keira Knightley as Elizabeth would fit into all this, should Bloom as Will return to the fold.

Pirates of the Caribbean 5 - Orlando Bloom to return?

At World's End concluded on a note that setup the story for On Stranger Tides, but by the time the latter movie was finished, it (arguably) didn't feel as though there was any sort of obvious place for Jack Sparrow's journey to go next. The same holds true for Will's character arc following the events of At World's End, which is why bringing him back for the fifth installment reads as being a questionable choice - purely from a storytelling perspective, anyway. As some of our readers have pointed out, though, the ten years between At World's End and Pirates 5 (in real-world time) could be a clue to how Will might re-enter the story.

Either way, Pirates of the Caribbean 5 screenwriter Jeff Nathanson (Rush Hour 2 & 3, Tower Heist) and directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki) do have freedom to chart an unusual course with the plot of the next Pirates movie. The question is whether or not they have an idea in mind that will get moviegoers excited to see more of Jack Sparrow's antics, six years after the last film seemingly failed to leave too many people all that enthused about the idea of this franchise living on for another day.

Pirates of the Caribbean 5/Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales opens in U.S. theaters on July 7th, 2017.

Source: Yahoo! Movies