New Fears Troubled Johnny Depp Will SINK 'Pirates!'

Fire the cannons!

Producers of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales are terrified it's going to be a box office disaster, RadarOnline.com has learned, and they're already blaming star Johnny Depp!

“Johnny has been missing from a lot of the press appearances and is only appearing on (Disney-owned) Jimmy Kimmel on Friday night,” a source told RadarOnline.com.

Indeed, many promotional ads for the film barely make mention of the one-time ratings juggernaut.

Depp’s personal downfall and string of recent box office bombs has studio execs worried that his recent negative publicity will bleed into ticket sales, and sink the Pirates ship, the insider claimed.

So the studio has been parading co-stars like Orlando Bloom and Javier Bardem around the talk-show circuit, in an effort to keep attention on the movie. Depp has been regulated to “surprising” fans at Disneyland, and will face friendly fire from fellow Mouse House employee Kimmel.

"Disney, which is releasing the film, owns ABC and Kimmel, so we can expect a soft ball interview,” the source said. “No questions about Depp’s career falling apart or about money troubles or his ugly divorce.”

As RadarOnline.com has reported, Depp is desperate for a career comeback with this latest Pirates pic. And his recent behavior has done little to please his bosses.

“Many of the executives at the studio are still very unhappy with all the bulls**t he pulled during the filming of ‘Pirates’ 5 and they’ve made it clear they have no interest in continuing to work with him,” a source claimed, adding “His box office draw has all but disappeared and he’s a mess.”

According to multiple reports, Depp had problems throughout the Pirates shoot, and even had to fly back to the United States for emergency surgery on his finger, costing the production tens of millions of dollars in the process.

“It totally blew the already insane budget for the film way up,” the inside told RadarOnline.com. “Plus, the entire fiasco with Johnny and ex-wife Amber Heard’s dogs and the Australian government, that was something that threatened Disney’s very lucrative tax credit on the film.”