Great news for fans of Pirates Of The Caribbean as Disney has confirmed that Orlando Bloom will be returning to the cast for the fifth instalment. The announcement was revealed at Disney’s D23 expo on Saturday (August 15th) after the star himself had previously expressed uncertainty as to whether he would get the nod.

Bloom, of course, was missing from the fourth movie On Stranger Tides back in 2011, having played Will Turner, one of the franchise’s central characters, in the first three movies dating back to 2003. But it seems now that his role will be revived in some way for the 2017 release Dead Men Tell No Tales alongside Johnny Depp’s eternal favourite Captain Jack Sparrow.

Orlando BloomOrlando Bloom will be taking part in 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales'

Other actors who are rumoured to be playing a part in the fifth film are the Oscar winner Javier Bardem and British stars Stephen Graham and Kaya Scodelario. Dead Men Tell No Tales has been shooting on Australia’s Gold Coast this summer, and is thought to be nearing post-production.

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Bloom’s return was mooted as far back as December last year, at which point the 38 year old actor said that he was in “talks” with Disney but wasn’t “entirely sure” about what their outcome would be.

He told IGN back then: “I'm not entirely sure that [I'll be back] just yet, but there are talks. Basically they want to reboot the whole franchise, I think, and do something with me and the relationship with my son.”

Spoiler alert – fans will of course remember that Will Turner himself is no longer, so what challenges will that pose for Bloom? “I'm of course Davy Jones now, so I'm down the bottom of the ocean. It might be kind of fun to do something where I'm rumbling round the bottom of the ocean, because I won't look anything like me. Get all gnarly.”

Back at the D23 convention, after Bloom’s participation was announced, Depp himself took to the podium, dressed as and behaving like his Pirates character, swaggering about and apparently chucking grapes at the audience.

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