The ups and downs of turning the instant classic video game BioShock into a successful film adaptation are continuing right along. It’s being reported that Universal has chosen Juan Carlos Fresnadillo to replace Gore Verbinski as director on the movie.

Excitement encased the world of geekdom when it was first revealed that Verbinski would be directing the water-heavy BioShock after his impressive water work on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Verbinski actually stepped away from the proposed fourth Pirates flick in order to helm the challenging video game adaptation. When a swelling price tag ($160 Million) saw the project placed on the back burner in order to figure out a new, more cost-friendly attack strategy, it became apparent that shooting in an overseas location might be the best option. Verbinski, having other projects going on, was unable to meet the scheduling demands, and thus, stepped away.

In one of those very interesting and very unexpected announcements, it appears as though Rob Marshall will be the man to replace Gore Verbinski for the fourth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Reports state that Disney had been looking at many different directors, but for the moment, unless the bottom completely falls out on this deal, Rob Marshall is the guy.

For those of you who aren’t so familiar with Mr. Marshall, the announcement comes as a shock because the director is best known for his musical work. He’s only got a few jobs on his resume, but the big one is the 2002 Best Picture winner Chicago, which starred Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, and Renee Zellweger. After that, he moved on to a less-musical period drama in Memoirs of a Geisha — which also pulled in some Oscar gold. His next due film is another musical based on an earlier screenplay written by the legendary Federico Fellini. The film is called Nine and it has a juggernaut cast including Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson, Dame Judi Dench, and Sophia Loren.

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.

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:

It was Disney day today and in an event held at the Kodak Theater, the company announced some of its gigantic upcoming projects including Cars 2, Alice in Wonderland, and The Lone Ranger, and what Johnny Depp has to do with most of them.

In Tim Burton‘s upcoming CGI/3D/live-action (I’m not sure if anyone really knows WHAT it will actually be) take on the classic Alice in Wonderland story, Johnny Depp was long-rumored to be playing the Mad Hatter. Considering that he is now to Tim Burton what John Ratzenberger is to Pixar, we all knew this was likely and Disney confirmed today that Depp would indeed be taking on the role for his pal.

From what sounds like quite a spectacle, apparently the University of Southern California’s marching and came out, playing the Lone Ranger theme song followed by someone dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow wearing the Ranger’s iconic mask. When the mask was removed, it was Johnny Depp himself. Hmm, would have liked to see that one. At first, everyone just assumed that this meant that Depp will be playing the Ranger, but MTV has JUST reported that Disney reps are now saying he’ll be playing the Lone Ranger’s sidekick Tonto.