Sea Widow

"Just because you can't see something, it doesn't mean it's not there." This article covers something that was conceived for some PotC material but never made it to the final product!

Sea Widow
Biographical information
Gender	Female
Title(s)	Sea witch
Also known as	Cora June Nadirah
Statistics
Battles	Jack Sparrow Hector Barbossa Trident of Neptune
Behind the scenes
First appearance	Dead Men Tell No Tales (Terry Rossio's screenplay)
Last appearance	Dead Men Tell No Tales (Terry Rossio's screenplay)

The Sea Widow, also known as Cora June and Nadirah, was a sea witch of the seven seas. A terrifying woman of great power, the Sea Widow would attempt to find the magical pearls from the broken Trident of Neptune so she could have her revenge on Jack Sparrow, incorrectly blaming him and holding him responsible for the death of her husband and children.

Behind the scenes

"My version of Dead Men Tell No Tales was set aside because it featured a female villain, and Johnny Depp was worried that would be redundant to Dark Shadows, which also featured a female villain."

―Terry Rossio

The Sea Widow, who also takes the form as "Cora June" and "Nadirah" throughout the story, appeared in Terry Rossio's 2012 screenplay draft for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Rossio mentioned the film in his annotations for his screenplay, specifically for the character named "Cora" who was intended to be a ten-year-old child, and distinctive from Nadirah and the Sea Widow. He noted the urge on the part of various production entities to cast a young woman or age the character upwards, comparing to what was done with Jim Hawkins on Disney's Treasure Island adaptation Treasure Planet or Dave Sutler "the Apprentice" in the 2010 film The Sorcerer's Apprentice, to cite examples of films where the kid-adult relationship was distorted into a young adult-adult relationship.

According to Rossio, the inclusion of a female villain was the reason his version of Dead Men Tell No Tales was discarded, and rejected by actor Johnny Depp, who was "worried that would be redundant to Dark Shadows, which also featured a female villain."

In Jeff Nathanson's early 2013 screenplay draft for Dead Men Tell No Tales, there was a witch named Melia who—similarly to the Sea Widow—prophesied that Jack would get his throat slit by his own sword, although it was his regular cutlass rather than a bane like in Terry Rossio's script. The witch in Nathanson's draft later became Shansa, the sea witch featured in the final version of the 2017 film.