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!

There’s no question that fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise are strongly skeptical of director Rob Marshall taking over as director from Gore Verbinski on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Marshall is best known as someone who makes popular musicals like Chicago and Nine, but not so much someone who can rock the action-fantasy chords.

Whether Marshall delivers us another great time at the movies or not, he is using his standing to sway possible new talents. The trades have heard word that Penélope Cruz — star of Marshall’s latest musical, Nine — is in negotiations to star in the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

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.

It has been just a few days since we officially learned that some major issues were happening within the production of Spider-Man 4 (which they’re apparently presenting as SPIDER-M4N; this needs to be stopped immediately), and that the movie would be on hold indefinitely until script and character differences were fixed.

Well, it didn’t take long for other gigantic Summer 2011 titles to swarm the vacated premium real estate: Box Office Mojo has made the changes that reveal that the other Marvel powerhouse in Kenneth Branagh‘s Thor has moved up from May 20, 2011 to Spidey 4‘s empty May 6, 2011 spot. At the very same time, the fourth film in another gold mine franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, swooped into the now-open May 20 spot left by Thor. At the the time of the latter move, Pirates 4 had yet to settle into a specific date, having only declared a Summer 2011 release.

The move for Thor is not a huge one, but this will likely make it the first biggie of the Summer season, and if a leaked X-Men Origins: Wolverine can make $85 Million as an opener, then Thor should set the bar in hard to reach places. Along with with the addition of Pirates of the Caribbean 4, May just may just already be the biggest month of 2011.