Disney’s fifth Pirates Of The Caribbean film has already seen two years’ worth of delays due to script issues, sobering, post-Lone Ranger moments of clarity, and the tempestuous sea threatening to swallow us whole, should we continue to treat it as a playground for our supernatural claptrap. And now Dead Men Tell No Tales been put on hold for at least another month thanks to a smaller, more tactile reason: Johnny Depp’s hand, which the actor injured in early March, effectively shutting down the movie with his finger.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, about half of the production crew of 400—the largest ever to film in Australia—has now been dismissed for at least four weeks, while Depp recuperates from having surgery in the U.S. to put a pin in his finger, which he needs to point drunkenly at things as Captain Jack Sparrow. For now, filming is expected to resume in mid-April and the sequel is still scheduled to be released on July 7, 2017, though it remains to be seen whether that will all stay the same on a movie that’s already been beset by problems ranging from overblown budgets to cyclones to fingertips. For one thing, we’ve still yet to hear from the fish.
Meanwhile, the exact nature of Depp’s injury remains entirely vague, with reports simply saying he hurt himself in an unspecified accident “off set.” Possibly related is that the human hand can only support so much jewelry.