As you know by now, the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, subtitled On Stranger Tides, will be loosely based on the Tim Powers novel of the same name that heavily influenced Ron Gilbert's conception of Monkey Island. The assumption that the adaptation will be "loose" is logical considering that the book's protagonist, Jack Shanty, has very little in common with Depp's Jack Sparrow in personality and background.
However, the outline of the novel, which is about the Fountain of Youth and stars as its villain the infamous Blackbeard, will survive the translation to the silver screen, and today the rumor mill informs us that Blackbeard will be played by Ian McShane, who you may know from Deadwood and who represents some pretty pitch-perfect casting.
Previous casting rumors include reports of Penelope Cruz playing the female lead, and I'm sure you've some kind of reaction to that. But why don't we hear anything about Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa anymore? I was rather hoping that the early reports that claimed that the film would see Sparrow and Barbossa questing for the Fountain together had merit.
Source: CHUD
Although there are people who look at the first three movies and just see Depp mugging for the camera, Sparrow has actually shared screentime fairly equivalently with the other major characters in the previous installments, with no one particularly character's story ever really being approached as the primary one or the most important one. Wasn't it literally past the half hour mark that Depp even showed up in At World's End?