by Leigh Goessl

Created on: April 25, 2010

Word has been vibrant with speculation that Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer are planning the release of the fourth installment of the Pirates saga to theatres on May 11, 2011.

Yep, it looks like the popular Jack Sparrow will be back once again in "Pirates of the Caribbean 4" titled "On Stranger Tides". The film is scheduled to start shooting in summer of 2010 in the picturesque and beautiful Hawaii. Rob Marshall will be directing the film and it has been said Johnny Depp will have a lot of input for the fourth installment.

When "Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End" concluded the story left a bit of a hint as to what would perhaps come next for the popular pirate. Barbarossa had once again filched command of the Black Pearl leaving Jack in the dust, and Sparrow found himself in a dingy boat, drinking a bottle of rum and perusing a map which was revealed to have been swiped from Barbarossa.

In those final scenes viewers watched Jack Sparrow float away in the small boat on the sea looking at the map, which featured directions to the Fountain of Youth. Apparently Pirates 4 is looking to pick up shortly after this point, at least to start.

As an aside, as a part of these final sequences of scenes, the movie pretty much wrapped up Will and Elizabeth's story and revealed the couple had a son who gets to see his dad every 10 years. Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom will not be reprising their characters or joining the cast of Pirates 4. If you think about it, their characters had been pretty much been written into a box anyway, at the end of Pirates 3 there wasn't really much left for them to tell.

Jack Sparrow, on the other hand, still has lots of back story that has not yet been bared. Sure, viewers got a glimpse of dad, who is also a pirate, and saw mom as a shrunken head, but not much else is known.

iMDB has listed for Pirates 4 plot summary " After Jack Sparrow meets Barbossa in the newly found New Orleans, they sail to find the fountain of youth together only to find that Blackbeard is after it too" (iMDB.com). It looks like the dastardly, yet loveable, pirate duo might be pairing up once again.

With Elizabeth and Will gone, new leads will replace the duo to interact with Captain Jack Sparrow. Ian McShane has been listed to play Blackbeard and Penelope Cruz as Blackbeard's daughter; the latter has been speculated to be a love interest for Jack. Geoffrey Rush as Barbarossa is rumored to be coming back to reprise his role, but has not yet been confirmed.

Keith Richards will purportedly revise his role as Teague Sparrow, Jack's revered pirate father. A bit of buzz has surfaced on the web that Johnny Depp is looking to lure Richards real-life band mate, Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger, to take on an elder pirate role as well. There is also much speculation that many of the original supporting cast of pirates will not be seen in the fourth installment. Depp has called it a "reboot".

A trailer for the fourth installment of the popular pirates saga is allegedly going to be released in December 2010.

References:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1298650/fullcredits#cast

http://www.ecanadanow.com/entertainment/2010/04/25/d epp-and-keith-richards-star-in-film-seek-jagger-to-c o-star/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/19/pirates-of- the-caribbean-_0_n_428826.html

http://www.firstshowing.net/2010/02/21/depp-confirms -knightley-bloom-wont-return-for-pirates-4/

http://www.ecanadanow.com/entertainment/2010/04/25/d epp-and-keith-richards-star-in-film-seek-jagger-to-c o-star/

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