Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
 Rumors began to fly about another sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean almost as soon as the third installment, At World’s End, reached movie theaters in May 2007. Audiences can’t get enough of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, and, as Johnny told a reporter from Movie Magic in 2007, “If they had a good script, why not? [. . .] I can’t say that Captain Jack Sparrow’s done. I just feel like there are more things you could do. Because I suppose, with a character like this, the parameters are a little broader, so there are more possibilities, I think. And he’s a fun character to play. I was really not looking forward to saying goodbye to him.”
 Nor was producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who told the press in May 2007 that he had “optioned a book”—Tim Powers’ fantasy novel On Stranger Tides—and was in talks with Pirates’ scribes Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio about writing a fourth installment. Still, there was no official word from Walt Disney Pictures until the Disney affiliates meeting at the Kodak Theatre on September 24, 2008, when then-chairman Dick Cook brought Johnny Depp on stage, in full Jack Sparrow costume, to announce that a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film was indeed in the works.
Gore Verbinski, who directed the POTC trilogy, opted out of the fourth installment in April 2009, announcing his intention to pursue other projects instead (including his first animated feature, Rango, which stars Johnny Depp and is due in theaters in 2011). “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,” Verbinski said. “I’m looking forward to all of us crossing paths again in the future.” Still, Verbinski’s withdrawal left the proposed new film without a director.
 In late July, Variety reported that Rob Marshall, director of the Oscar-winning Chicago, was “in talks” with Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer to direct the fourth Pirates movie. If Marshall could work out a deal, that would put Pirates 4 “on track for a 2010 production start, with Johnny Depp back as Captain Jack Sparrow,” noted Variety. Asked for his opinion about how Pirates 4 would sail with Rob Marshall at the helm, producer Jerry Bruckheimer told IESB.com, “I think it will be great. First, we’ve got to make a deal. But he’s got a great sense of humor. He’s very funny.” In addition to Chicago, Rob Marshall has directed Memoirs of a Geisha and the musical Nine, with Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, and Nicole Kidman.
 Disney plans to start filming Pirates 4 in April or May of 2010, and release the film to theaters “hopefully” in 2011, Walt Disney Pictures’ head of production, Oren Aviv, told ComingSoon.net in July 2009. Aviv said to expect a more character-driven sea tale this time around: “It’s important to get the story right and it’s important to me to scale it down, because we can’t get bigger,” Aviv said. “The [Pirates]movies have subsequently gotten bigger and bigger and very complicated, and they were satisfying on so many levels obviously, but I want to kind of reboot the whole thing and bring it down to its core, its essence, just characters.”
Neither Elizabeth Swann, played by Keira Knightley, nor Will Turner, played by Orlando Bloom, is expected to be among the characters who return for Pirates 4, since their storyline concluded in At World’s End. However, moviegoers can expect to see Geoffrey Rush’s nefarious Captain Hector Barbossa back to bedevil Captain Jack Sparrow once again, possibly (as hinted at the end of At World’s End) as the two pirates hunt for the Fountain of Youth. The Oscar-winning Rush loves working in large, gifted ensembles and has no prejudice against sequels. Instead, he points to some legendary examples from Hollywood’s Golden Age as models: “Back in the old days, how many Thin Man movies did William Powell end up doing? Probably five or six. How many road movies did Bob Hope and Bing Crosby end up doing over 25-year period?” Rush can envision the two squabbling pirate captains, Sparrow and Barbossa, in a seaborne version of a “road movie,” with that classic combination of adventure and comedy.
 On September 11, 2009, “Johnny Depp, arguably the biggest movie star in the world, surprised the audience of Walt Disney Co.’s D23 Expo in Anaheim by sailing on stage in his famous pirate regalia,” reported Geoff Boucher in the Los Angeles Times. “Depp arrived on stage in gliding replica of the Black Pearl pirate ship and, before they saw his famous face, the crowd was cheering at the sight of his silhouette behind a billowing back-lit sail and pumping stage smoke.” Crowds also cheered the announcement that the fourth Pirates movie now had an official subtitle—On Stranger Tides—and a projected release date of Summer 2011. However, only a week later came word that Dick Cook, the longtime head of Walt Disney Pictures under whose leadership all the Pirates movies were made, was leaving the company. Johnny Depp made no attempt to hide his shock and dismay, telling Claudia Eller of the Los Angeles Times, “I didn’t see this coming. There was no reason to see this coming.”
 Regarding On Stranger Tides, Claudia Eller wrote, “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,” Johnny told the reporter. “It was all born in that office.”
Johnny Depp has made no further public statements about On Stranger Tides, nor have any official announcements come from Disney; the new chairman of Walt Disney Pictures, Rich Ross; or producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
 The most encouraging news comes from Geoffrey Rush, who told MTV in late September (a few days before the Dick Cook bombshell) that he was preparing to return to his role as Captain Barbossa and had been advised “to keep his schedule open for a possible start to filming next spring [2010].” However, there is no definite start date for On Stranger Tides as yet, and no finished script. “They’re waiting for the screenplay writers to put together something that’s beyond the trilogy,” explained Rush, “take it off into a new direction so that it’s fresh and hopefully really interesting for an audience.”
Rush has high praise for Johnny Depp and his creativity: “He’s one of the great character actors in a leading man’s body who constantly surprises himself and his audience with his capabilities and imagination. [. . .] Jack Sparrow is probably now to a certain generation more well known as a representative of the Disney imagination than Mickey Mouse himself.” --Part-Time Poet
Dark Shadows
 Johnny Depp will play Barnabas Collins, the angst-ridden vampire of Collinsport, in a new film adaptation of the groundbreaking gothic TV series Dark Shadows. The film will be produced for Warner Bros. by Infinitum Nihil and Graham King’s GK Films, and directed by Tim Burton from a script by John August, who has previously penned the screenplays for Burton’s Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride. The new Dark Shadows was originally scheduled to film in the fall of 2009, but had to be postponed because director Burton is fully occupied with intensive post-production work on his 3D Alice in Wonderland. While any delay is disappointing, Burton assured Eric Ditzian of MTV Movies Blog that he will begin work on Dark Shadows as soon as Alice is complete. “That’s something that [Johnny and I] both love and are excited about,” Burton told MTV. “When I’m done with this [Alice], I’ll definitely focus on that.”
 First word of the Dark Shadows deal with Infinitum Nihil, GK Films, and Warner Bros. appeared in a Variety article on July 26, 2007, when reporter Michael Fleming announced that “Johnny Depp is getting in touch with his inner vampire.” Fleming explained, “A rights deal just closed with the estate of Dan Curtis, the producer/director who created the soap that aired weekdays on ABC, from 1966 to 1971. Depp and [Graham] King will produce with David Kennedy, who ran Dan Curtis Productions until Curtis died last year of a brain tumor. Infinitum Nihil’s Christi Dembrowski [IN’s president and Johnny’s sister] served as the point person on the deal.”
 Many Depp fans assumed that Johnny had initiated and pursued the Dark Shadows project because of his lifelong love of the franchise, particularly the iconic role of vampire Barnabas Collins, played by Jonathan Frid. But that was not a case: on the contrary, Dan Curtis Productions approached Johnny Depp . . . and they initiated talks ten years ago, when Sleepy Hollow took the box office by storm. “We’ve always wanted to do [. . .] another feature and I read that Johnny Depp was a fan of the show so we approached his people,” Jim Pierson of Dan Curtis Productions told reporter Richard Knight Jr. “This was [. . .] years ago, when Sleepy Hollow came out.” Scheduling could never be worked out, though, says Pierson, because “Johnny Depp’s always been so busy [. . .] . But now he’s figured out a way to squeeze it in his schedule.” Pierson assures Dark Shadows fans (and they are legion) that the agreement with Infinitum Nihil, GK Films and Warner Bros. requires the new movie “to be faithful to the original premise of the show”—it will respect the Dark Shadows mythology. Original Dark Shadows cast members are delighted with the new movie and the prospect of Johnny Depp becoming the next Barnabas Collins. Pierson reports that the original Barnabas, Jonathan Frid, autographed a photo for Johnny “and certainly wishes him well.” Lara Parker, who created the role of the witch Angelique, told Richard Knight, “I’m very proud that Johnny Depp is going to make a movie from our show. [. . .] I think he’ll be marvelous.”
 For those Deppheads who never saw Dark Shadows, it was a highly innovative and popular afternoon serial which ran for 1,225 episodes on the ABC network from 1966 to 1971. Steeped in suspense but incorporating a surprising amount of humor, Dark Shadows employed gothic conventions and featured leading characters who were vampires, werewolves, and witches. So strong was the show’s mythology that it continued to engross fans long after Dark Shadows left ABC; it spawned several films and then TV revivals, as well as annual fan conventions, called Dark Shadows Festivals, which began in 1983 and continue to thrive. The SyFy channel re-aired the original series in the 1990s and early 2000s, introducing the inhabitants of Collinsport to a new generation of fans.
 Johnny Depp has spoken publicly of his affection for Dark Shadows on many occasions. Reports Variety, “Depp has said in interviews that he has always been obsessed with Dark Shadows and has wanted to play Collins, the vampire patriarch of the series.” Producer Richard Zanuck also recalls Johnny saying he was “obsessed” with the series as a child and “used to sneak out of school to get home to turn on the television set.” Series creator Dan Curtis gave his blessing to Johnny playing his most famous character in an interview published online in 2002. Responding to a suggestion that a Dark Shadows film remake would work if Johnny Depp were cast as Barnabas, Curtis replied: “I agree that Johnny Depp would be great as a new Barnabas.”
 Dark Shadows is famous for its unique tone that could effortlessly juxtapose genuine horror with campy melodrama. “Part of the energy of it was the tone and weirdness of it,” Tim Burton said in his July 2009 interview with MTV. “That’s our challenge, to try to capture that vibe.” And will his film emphasize the suspense, the horror . . . or the humor? “It’s always a fine line,” Burton told MTV. “That remains to be seen. That’s a question and a challenge we talk about a lot. I haven’t arrived at the answer,” he admitted. “That’s definitely a main issue, the tone and the vibe of it because as we all know melodrama can cross over [into camp]. It’s one of the more interesting things about it.”
 Tonal challenges aside, Burton is looking forward to making another film with Johnny Depp: Dark Shadows will be their eighth collaboration. “It’s enjoyable working with him,” Burton said. “I like actors that like to become characters. Some actors make a career out of being themselves in a movie,” the director explained, “and I’ve always enjoyed those real character actors that just like to become different creatures—and he’s that way.”
Vampire Barnabas Collins will give Johnny Depp a different creature to play—and a chance to interpret a character who has fascinated him since childhood. What an irresistible combination. --Part-Time Poet
The Lone Ranger
 Johnny Depp will play Tonto in a new version of the classic Western adventure The Lone Ranger, to be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer for Walt Disney Pictures from a screenplay by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. Although Elliott and Rossio are best known for the Pirates of the Caribbean films, they also have experience with masked heroes on horseback: they wrote The Mask of Zorro.
The Lone Ranger has been a part of American culture since its debut as a radio series in 1933. Writer Fran Striker thrilled Depression audiences with the story of a masked avenger and his Native American friend who journeyed through the Wild West helping the powerless gain justice. The radio series ran for more than 20 years and spawned novels, comic books, movie serials, and eventually a hit television series. The half-hour TV series, which starred Clayton Moore as the Ranger and Jay Silverheels as Tonto, ran from 1949 through 1957.
 The editor of the Journal of Popular Culture, Professor Gary Hoppenstand, considers the Lone Ranger a quintessential American icon. As a 19th-century knight-errant who helped the downtrodden in their pursuit of justice and never accepted any payment for his services, the Lone Ranger was “a hero made for radio audiences of the Great Depression,” Hoppenstand said on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. The Lone Ranger might have operated outside the law, but he worked on behalf of law-abiding citizens when their local officials could not, or would not, help them. He rescued ordinary people and restored their lost liberty and property, as well as their faith in society and hope for the future. Trustworthy and resilient, the Lone Ranger brought an optimistic message to lift morale in tough times.
 As soon as Dick Cook, then the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, announced (in September 2008) Disney’s plans to film The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp as the Native American Tonto, rumors flooded the Internet claiming that George Clooney would saddle up and don the black mask to play the Ranger. Not so fast, Kemosabe—the Internet buzz got so loud that Clooney’s press representative issued an official denial of the story: “Reports that George Clooney will star alongside Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger are not true.” While other actors’ names have been mentioned, the casting of the Lone Ranger remains a tantalizing mystery. “We haven’t found a Lone Ranger yet,” Johnny told MTV in June 2009, “but I know Tonto pretty well.”
 Producer Jerry Bruckheimer confirmed that the Ranger has not yet been cast. In a November 2009 interview, Mr. Bruckheimer explained that he has “a wish list” when it comes to casting, but that luck and timing are also important factors: “It comes down to who is available when we want to make it.” So the casting of the Ranger will wait “until they get a director and Disney says to go make the movie,” Mr. Bruckheimer said. Press reports from spring 2009 claiming that Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) was already in the director’s chair were premature. Debunking those reports, Mr. Bruckheimer said, “We don’t have a director yet.” There is, however, a draft script dated March 29, 2009, which Latino Review read for its “First Look” feature and pronounced “really good.” According to Latino Review, “It seems like the producers have every intention of being faithful to The Lone Ranger history, and the movie will include the characters’ origin story.” The movie “will not be a comedy-parody like Pirates,” the Review continues. Nevertheless, “[T]his is clearly a star vehicle for Johnny Depp because the character of Tonto is a badass [. . . and] Tonto is clearly the standout role.”
 The role of Tonto is a natural fit for Johnny, since he is part Cherokee, and as he told Douglas Brinkley in Vanity Fair, “You know I’m always for the Indian in the cowboy movie. Always.” The Lone Ranger saga is unusual because the Texas Ranger and Tonto are friends, not enemies—a rather radical, optimistic vision of universal brotherhood for a western which began in the 1930s, when positive portrayals of Native Americans in mainstream media were few and far between. Johnny’s vision of Tonto is even more radical: “Tonto needs to be in charge,” he told Douglas Brinkley. “The Lone Ranger should be a fool, a lovable one, but a fool nonetheless.” Brinkley qualifies the remark by saying it was made “half in jest,” but even so, it suggests a fresh and intriguing approach to the legendary partnership of the Lone Ranger and Tonto. --Part-Time Poet
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