Gore Verbinski, who directed all three of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, has informed Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer that he will not be returning to direct Pirates of the Caribbean 4. While a fourth movie doesn’t technically exist yet, Disney has pretty much always had plans to return to the seas for another movie, and possibly even another trilogy. Considering the multi-billions of dollars the franchise based simply on a ride at the theme park has made them, who could even blame them? Another big time concern is, how much will the director’s departure affect the forward motion of the fourth movie?
Verbinski has multiple other projects lined up, most notably of which is a live-action movie based on the hugely popular video game, BioShock. This would be the biggest and most challenging of projects, and it’s expected that this is what is next in line for the visual director. Another fairly significant and recently-announced option he has, is a new movie based on the popular board game, Clue. Currently, he’s working on an animated movie called Rango in which Pirates star Johnny Depp voices the lead.
Verbinski offered this statement:
I had a fantastic time bringing ‘Pirates’ to life, and I am eternally grateful to Jerry, Johnny and the rest of the creative and production team. I’m looking forward to all of us crossing paths again in the future.
While I personally love all three Pirates movies and still find it odd that the last two are as disliked by most as they are (Come on, are we seriously so spoiled that two perfectly entertaining movies such as Pirates 2 & 3 deserve to be criticized negatively when there’s stuff like Dance Movie being released!?) — I am happy to hear that BioShock is likely next. As a fan of the game, I can’t help but wonder how they will approach it and make it work. One thing is for damn sure, though, Gore Verbinski knows how to work with water, and that’s a big-time plus going into BioShock.
As for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, it will be interesting to see who they try and get to replace Verbinski. Johnny Depp seems perfectly fine with playing Captain Jack Sparrow as often as he’s needed to, so there’s pieces to work with there. I think so long as they have him and they can get Geoffrey Rush to come back as Barbosa for the Fountain of Youth storyline, all will be fine in that world.
[Source: Variety]
For Pirates, as long as they steer clear of the Turner family storyline completely, I’m fine with it. The world they opened up in the first trilogy is quite interesting. There’s plenty of room for a new cast of characters. We don’t need to see new ones, but if they want Sparrow to pop in from time to time, fine. Making him central again would be overkill.