Pirates 4 on shaky ground?

For those fans (like myself) of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, there may or may not be a fourth installment.

IMDB.com very recently added some more details to the Pirates of the Caribbean 4 page, namely the addition of a title (“On Stranger Tides”) and the “confirmation” of Johnny Depp’s reprise as Captain Jack Sparrow.

However, due to the resignation of Dick Cook, Walt Disney Studio Chairman, Johnny Depp may not be interested in making the movie anymore. Here is the reasoning taken from movieweb.com:

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Johnny Depp, who credits Cook as being a major supporter of his Jack Sparrow creation on set when other producers weren't happy with what the actor was doing, explained, "(Cook) said, 'We're thinking about doing this Pirates of the Caribbean movie,' I said I was in. This was before there was a script or anything. He's instantly trustworthy. And you generally don't meet people at the studios you trust. When things went a little sideways on the first 'Pirates' movie and others at the studio were less than enthusiastic about my interpretation of the character, Dick was there from the first moment. He trusted me." Now, with Cook gone, Depp said about a Fourth film, "There's a fissure, a crack in my enthusiasm at the moment."

And, as everyone knows, Johnny Depp is basically what has made the films what they are, a billion dollar entity. There are plenty more articles listing the same thing as well.

Another item to note is that the director for the fourth movie is non other than “Chicago” director, Rob Marshall instead of Gore Verbinski who directed the previous three Pirates movies. Interesting choice…