Screenwriter Terry Rossio, who’s been involved in every Pirates film so far, revealed that an early version of the script was rejected by Depp for a baffling reason.
So, according to the powerful in Hollywood, there’s only allowed to be one female villain. Just one.
Then he adds, “My version of Dead Men Tell No Tales [the US title for Pirates 5] was set aside because it featured a female villain, and Johnny Depp was worried that would be redundant to Dark Shadows, which also featured a female villain.”
Posted on his personal blog, Rossio writes at length about the various hurdles and potential deaths a script can face during development.