Jerry Bruckheimer thinks it was ‘time to move on’ from Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley in the ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’ franchise.

The Oscar-winning film producer – who worked with the stars on the first three movies in the popular series – revealed there is no need for the A-list duo to appear in the fourth instalment as the stories of their characters Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann have already been told.

‘The characters are after the Fountain of Youth, that’s the plot. We have no Orlando or Keira but you move on. They were great but I think it was time to move on – we’d told their stories,’ he said.

Whether the ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’ films – which will continue to feature Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow – will work without the stars remains to be seen, but Jerry admitted he made a mistake when he produced another of his movies, ‘King Arthur’ as it should have been ‘more violent’.

He added to ShortList magazine: ‘With that move we didn’t get the story right. That’s the truth. We got the plot wrong. I think the director Antoine Fuqua did a great job, and yes, it falls on us when we just can’t get it right.

‘It could have been more violent – Antoine wanted that – but the studio thought it was a summer picture and took a lot of that violence out.’