The Week in Pirate News: Marshall for ‘Pirates 4’, plus ‘Captain Blood’

Tweet

RSSS

Tweet

I really wasn’t hot on the news that Warner Bros. is updating the 1935 Captain Blood movie and putting the pirate, once played by Errol Flynn, in space.

But it looks like that news lit a bit of a fire under the asses of the Disney execs. Variety is reporting that Chicago helmer Rob Marshall is in line to direct the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

From Variety:

Disney is on the verge of putting Rob Marshall in as director of a fourth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, a move that puts the film on track for a 2010 production start, with Johnny Depp back as Captain Jack Sparrow.

There hasn’t been a director at the helm of the pirate ship since April, when Gore Verbinski stepped out to focus on a movie version of the vidgame Bioshock for Universal (Daily Variety, April 7, 2009). Though that film’s lost some momentum, Verbinski has moved on to other directing and producing projects.

Now, Captain Blood is set to be directed by the Spierig brothers.  The pair directed the zombie film Undead and have the vampire film Daybreakers coming out in January. That puts them firmly in the realm of genre filmmakers. Having Rob Marshall, an Academy Award nominee and one of the frontrunners for this year’s directing Oscar, direct Pirates 4 ups the ante.  No matter how the pictures turn out, the lead up to the releases will be fun to watch.