Pirates wasn’t a “fluke”.
Pirates was a really good film, that had great world building, a character that is now fairly iconic made iconic by an extremely charismatic actor. Oh, and VFX well ahead of its time.
You need someone at the helm who has a cool vision and a way to bring it to life. Oh, and how about some inspired casting too?
I think Jungle Cruise is the closest they’ve come to matching a pirates like breakout since. Had the film come out in 2019 instead of 2020, I think the film does really, really well.