‘Pirates of the Caribbean 4’ Tops Must-List at Disney

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was epic; Dead Man's Chest was kind of cool; At World's End was boring as hell.

However, a fourth is indeed in the works, without Kiera Knightly or Orlando Bloom. That's right; every Pirates movie after the third will only be about Jack Sparrow. Johnny Depp will return as Jack (although only getting paid in the $35 million range) as will Geoffrey Rush. Gore Verbinski will direct once again. A while ago, CinemaBlend's source for this news said "the ending of Pirates 3, the fountain of youth story might not be the only story they might used the next pirate's film. The fountain story could be used in another form to introduce the story for Pirates 4… the next film might be a departure from the same formula of the last three movies as well, meaning that Jerry Bruckheimer could be planning to enter the realm of science-fiction this time around and it could be the heart of a new trilogy with Jack Sparrow and his crew of misfits. Some of the brainstorming going around involves some Jules Verne type of scenarios involving some pretty big flying machines, a man who wants to rule more than just the ocean, a encounter with the most famous and dangerous pirate of all, a race to get to a lost world (hint, hint) and Jack and his crew going to where no pirate has gone before (no, it's not space, but Disney had made animated movies about this place before with Michael J. Fox voicing one of the characters)." That was from June 20^th, 2007.

Today, June 11^th, 2009, longtime Disney movie producer (including the Pirates trilogy) Jerry Bruckheimer said that the sequel is now at the tippity-top of the company's to-do list. The Film Stage says "Pirates 4 is the priority right now for Disney. 'A beloved character and Johnny's (Johnny Depp) really excited about coming back to Captain Jack. He certainly is interested in Tonto, but Disney's priority is to get 'Pirates' made first. You never know what's going to happen, but they would like it.' Bruckheimer also mentioned that the original writers Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot would be returning as well."

The series has been a mega-hit for Disney and huge at retailer Hot Topic and many more places. So I don't know why I didn't see a sequel coming after At World's End. I'm up for another, but is the rest of America?