Just over a week ago Johnny Depp appeared in full Jack Sparrow costume to announce the new title, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and a release date of summer 2011 for the next Pirates movie. However since then Dick Cook, the longtime chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, decided to step down and Depp has been quoted as saying he is “shocked and very sad” about this news.
From the L.A Times:
The actor said it was because of Cook that he ended up working with Disney in the first place. Cook had been trying woo Depp for years with various projects including doing voice-overs for animated films and one day, in Cook’s office, the studio chief threw out an idea that Depp pounced on.
“He said, ‘We’re thinking about doing this ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie,’” Depp recalled. “I said I was in. This was before there was a script or anything.”
As for the fourth planned “Pirates” movie, Depp said while he has a potential deal in place that will depend on how good the script is, his passion for the project at the moment has been severely dampened by the news that Cook will no longer be around.
“There’s a fissure, a crack in my enthusiasm at the moment,” Depp said. “It was all born in that office.”
Writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio must feel a lot of pressure on them after reading this. The future of the billion dollar Pirates of the Caribbean franchise rests on their writing abilities, as no Depp means no movie.
