Captain Jack out of the Caribbean?

Can you smell that? Does it kinda smell like a load of rubbish down in the Caribbean? It just might be. If you haven’t heard, there will be a fourth installment of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, but there are going to be some major changes to its look.

First off, director Gore Verbinski and stars Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley will not be back. Now news comes that the budget has been reduced by more than a third and the location will change from the Caribbean to Hawaii and London.

Don’t worry though, Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow will be back, but will he be enough to make the film good? We will have Penelope Cruz as a love interest, but sometimes it’s the dynamic of the stars that make the film what it is. Will that be the case with Pirates?

We really won’t know until the film drops, or the first trailers begin to roll out, but again it’s a study in how Hollywood doesn’t get it. They’ll budget junk like “The Back-up Plan” or “Date Night”, but slash the cash going into a proven commodity like “Pirates”. It just doesn’t make sense.

I’ll be the first to say that most Hollywood major players are way overpaid, however, it you’re going to put your money on a pony, do you want that pony to be Depp or Steve Carrell? I don’t want to take anything away from Carrell and his ability as a comedic actor, but again, you go with what you know will make money.

The movie could overcome Hollywood’s hampering though. A perfect case study of that is the “Planet of the Apes” series. I know that might sound like a stretch, but stay with me.

From the original film, each subsequent sequel saw its budget reduced, yet it still managed to make money. At one point they even moved from the cutting edge make-up techniques for background actors and opted for consumer grade rubber Planet of the Apes masks. Yikes.

Another aspect of the film that worries me is the chosen director. Rob Marshall is not the first person I would have pegged as being the choice to direct a big action, adventure film. Marshall’s credits include “Chicago”, “Memoirs of a Geisha” and “Nine”. For the scorecard, that’s two musicals and a very boring flick. Not exactly instilling confidence is he? But hey, we seen directors and actors tackle a project that we as viewers thought they weren’t suited for. Imagine Iron Man without Robert Downey Jr. – it would be just another comic book movie.

I know with Depp still leading the “Pirates” brigade, the movie will at least be interesting and I’m hoping for much more than that after the last “Pirates” movie. The movie has a lot to live up to, and as things are stripped away, it makes achieving that vision more and more difficult, but don’t count it out just yet.

Or maybe we should “borrow” our own ship, raise a crew, hoist the Jolly Roger and get the attention of Rich Ross the only way we can – like avoiding the studios other releases leading up to “Pirates”. Savvy?