Walt Disney Pictures is about to get their new Blackbeard the Pirate; Ian McShane is in negotiations to star as the infamous pirate force in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in their juggernaut franchise.

McShane would become the new villain in the movie, joining Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow and Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbossa. Penélope Cruz was also recently added to the cast, but details are not known as to who exactly she will play aside from the basic description of being Sparrow’s “foil and equal in many ways.”

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides will pick up from where Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End teased us at the end: with the pursuit of the mysterious and elusive Fountain of Youth. It will also be based loosely on the Tim Powers novel, On Stranger Tides, which happened to be a very similar story to the one the wanted to tell, so the rights to the novel were acquired.

NOTE: For structural reasons and to ensure that this list is super-duper pretty at all times, we’ll be posting this same intro for all sections of The Decade List. If you’ve already read all of this, you can just head down to the continuation of our list!

Let’s just get it out of the way right off the ol’ bat: yes, we know it’s been month since we left the decade. Most folks undertook this heavy task pre-2010, but we decided that it would be a little bit better to let the new year settle in a bit before hitting you with something of this magnitude.

So here we are, geeks: we’ve officially arrived in FUTURE *cue retro ’50s sci-fi music* and still we have no freakin’ flying cars yet. What’s the deal with that? While it is pretty exciting to be inside of the year 2010 — a year that always seemed unreachable to us mere mortals — we are also exiting another entire decade that leaves us staring at one majorly epic task. That task? To search, dig, locate, retrieve, organize, polish, and present the very best films of the past ten years!

With all of the drama that has been going on with Disney, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides — the fourth installment in the franchise — and star Johnny Depp, it’s a miracle that things are still full steam ahead. But as it were, not only is it all moving forward, but the movie is now planning to begin shooting this Summer with Depp ready to go for at least this one last time.

Now, since the ending of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, everyone has expected any additional movies to involve the long-desired Fountain of Youth. We were even informed that the movie would be based on Tim Powers‘ 1987 book that inspired the sub-title, On Stranger Tides, which did involve the Fountain, but still nothing had really been confirmed yet…that I had known about.

As it turns out, Empire Magazine actually spoke to Pirates writer Terry Rossio back in October, and all was confirmed then. And while the book in question is not the full inspiration of the new movie, it has enough of the elements that the film makers wanted to use that it was just safer and easier to acquire the rights to the novel as well.

Disney has been making some big announcements lately: their acquisition of Marvel Studios; a partnership with the great Guillermo del Toro; the motion capture remake of Yellow Submarine; and now this, the officially announcement of the title for Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

The fourth movie in one of the biggest movie franchises of all time will now be called Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (click image for full title graphic). The flick is locked and loaded with crucial Johnny Depp set to return as Jack Sparrow. To lower the budget a bit, both Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley will not be returning, unless they appear in small cameos.

Also expected to return is Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbossa, but this is not confirmed yet. The high hopes is that the Fountain of Youth storyline set up at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End will be used here. It also appears that there is a book titled On Stranger Tides that does involve the Fountain, so questions have also arisen as to if this will be the source material for the fourth film.

No official word on the premise of Pirates 4 has been shared, but you can check out the synopsis for this book and its mention of said Fountain of Youth on the other side.

Coming Soon was able to grab Disney’s Head of Production Oren Aviv at San Diego Comic Con 2009 and ask him a few questions. One of the juicy bits that they were able to abstract from the Disney head had to do with the next chapter in one of the biggest franchises ever: Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

Aviv confirmed that they were indeed still all about making another Pirates movie, and that they actually wanted to start shooting it next Spring for a 2011 release. Since the final movie of the trilogy, At World’s End, had come and gone, we all knew another flick would be coming. Judging by the last images we saw, it was expected to focus of course on Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) going after the legendary Fountain of Youth. It was also expected that stars like Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom would be left out of the project to save money — a move that would probably help the franchise overall.