Pirates of the Caribbean 5 delayed

The next film in the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' series will not be released in the summer of 2015 as previously planned, it has emerged.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has confirmed the delay of 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales', citing issues with its script and budget.

It will now likely hit screens in the summer of 2016 instead.

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“We have an outline everyone loves but the script is not done,” Bruckheimer told the Hollywood Reporter. “We’re supposed to start in March and you start spending a lot of money now.”

Asked whether the film's budget was also an issue in the delay, he said: “It’s all a factor. We want a script that everyone’s signed off on and a budget that everyone’s signed off on.”

He then added that following this summer's blockbuster slaying at the multiplexes, 'everybody's more cautious'.

This is likely to be an oblique reference to Bruckheimer's last film, the disastrous 'The Lone Ranger', which was hammered by the critics and is still to recoup its colossal $250 million (£159 million) production budget.

It has previously been reported that the film has lost Disney up to $190 million (£120 million), with Bruckheimer famously blaming critics for the film's failure.

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A source at the studio told THR that the original script by Jeff Nathanson, who wrote 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' and 'Men In Black 3', was 'too expensive but it was also really complicated and hard to follow'.

A new outline script has been approved, but Bruckheimer added: “How do you budget an outline?”

He did, however, seem confident that the project will happen.

“With any movie, you’re never confident. But it’s a billion-dollar franchise,” he said.

Indeed, three of the films in the series, 'Dead Man's Chest', 'On Stranger Tides' and 'At World's End', rank in the top 20 highest-grossing films of all time.

That said, they have previously cost – in the case of 'At World's End' – in excess of $300 million (£190 million).

In the plus column, however, it will get the film out of the log-jam of massive films out in the summer of 2015, including the forthcoming 'Star Wars' sequel, the 'Man of Steel' sequel featuring Batman, and 'The Avengers 2'.

It's being directed by Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, who helmed 'Kon-Tiki', and will star Johnny Depp once more as Captain Jack Sparrow.