There's no denying that the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise is a monster, it's pulled in billions of dollars at the box-office and made an even bigger star out of Johnny Depp, but, all franchises seem to run out of steam eventually, and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN will likely be no exception. The latest film in the franchise, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES, was released earlier this year and has grossed $793 million worldwide, certainly nothing to stick your nose up at, but not exactly pushing past the billion dollar mark like its predecessor did. Coupled with another round of mixed-to-negative reviews, the future of the franchise isn't quite as clear as it once was.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN producer Jerry Bruckheimer recently spoke with Yahoo Movies about the box-office performance of DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES, saying that he thought it did "phenomenal," especially as the film is "fifth [film] in the series in a down market, and the American dollar is so strong that we’re getting less returns from foreign." In fact, Bruckheimer believes that that lower exchange rate kept the sequel from reaching a billion dollars. "This movie would’ve [made] a billion dollars had it been back in the same financial [situation as On Stranger Tides]," Bruckheimer said. "But we lost 27 percent of our money just by the conversion rate." Despite praising its success, Bruckheimer isn't sure whether a sixth installments is in the cards just yet, but hints that a solid performance on home-media would be a good start.

Well, I hope we can continue to make it, but you know we’ve been having so much fun just promoting this one right now that we’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully it’s very successful on DVD as the other ones have been. Then hopefully we’ll sit down and see where we go.

Although I felt as though DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES offered a marginal improvement over ON STRANGERS TIDES, if you take a gander at the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise's Rotten Tomatoes scores, you'll see that DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES is the worst-reviewed film of the franchise among critics. Yikes. Johnny Depp's Captain Jack shtick is certainly wearing a little thin, but I've got to believe that there's a way to salvage the sinking franchise. We'll get into some SPOILERS for DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES below, so be warned!

As for what the next installment of the franchise could be, the post-credit scene from DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES may offer a clue towards the direction it will take. With Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) free of his curse and finally reunited with his wife Elizabeth (Keira Knightly), all seems well in the Turner household, until a seemingly resurrected Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) makes an appearance. Should Davy Jones menace our heroes once again, Bill Nighy has recently said that he would "love" to return to the franchise, even though he had no idea that his character had made an appearance in DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES will be released on DVD/Blu-ray on October 3, 2017.