I’ve heard from a few different people who’ve seen early cuts of Pirates 4, and they’ve all said it’s bad — like insultingly bad, even compared to the last few — and I have no reason to doubt them based on the last clip we saw, which had all the fight choreography of a Nickelodeon sitcom about a talking horse.  But a little sucking never slowed this franchise down, and according to the Hollywood Reporter, Terry Rossio has already finished his script for the next installment (5IRATES OF THE 5ARIBBEAN? FIVERATES OF THE CARIFIVEAN?).  Frankly, the most surprising part of this story was learning that Pirates movies have scripts.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has said he’s in to make a fifth Pirates. And sources say Disney has made overtures to Rob Marshall, who took over directing duties on Pirates 4 from Gore Verbinski, who helmed the first three pictures, to return for another go-round (though no deal is in place for Marshall). But they key question mark is star Johnny Depp. Will he sign on for a fifth installment in the franchise?

“It boils down to story, script and filmmaker,” Depp tells THR. “It’s not something where I would say, ‘Let’s shoot it next month to get it out by Christmas 2012,’” he says. “We should hold off for a bit. They should be special, just like they are special to me.” [THR]

Yes, special, like McDonald’s french fries, or special sauce.  Aw man, now I’m hungry.  (*swings out window on a chandelier, juggles priceless vase, ruins fancy dinner party*)

Thanks to YahooMovies, we have the first clip from Pirates of the Caribbean 4, aka Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, aka Oh God This is Never Going to End is it, from new director Rob Marshall (of Chicago/Nine fame).  In the clip, Jack Sparrow effortlessly beats up the inept guards, runs across the table at a fancy dinner party, makes the fat man in the powdered wig frown, and swings away on a chandelier while grabbing a dinner roll and winking on the way out.  Hey, at least they didn’t go too campy with this one, right?  The only thing missing is a dog covering its eyes with its paws.  If they get through this entire movie without a bad guy falling face first in manure I will eat my tri-corner hat. CURSE YOU, JACK SPARROW, YOU LOVABLE INCORRIGIBLE ROGUE!

Not content to turn pirates of the Caribbean into ghost chasers, Abraham Lincoln into a vampire hunter, Edgar Allan Poe into a rape detective, Little Red Riding Hood into a werewolf humper, Peter Pan into a 30-year-old wigger, etc., etc., Hollywood now aims its gaping flatulent butthole of crap ideas at Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.  A month ago I reported that Val Kilmer would be playing Wyatt Earp in a new take on the iconic lawman.  Today, we’ve got news of ANOTHER Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday project, including a plot synopsis, and mother of God, all the tack hammers and all the cocaine in all the world could not make me dream up an idea this wildly idiotic:

Warner Bros. has preemptively picked up Wild Guns, a spec by T.S. Nowlin for Gianni Nunnari and his Hollywood Gang shingle to produce.

Described as having shades of Tombstone and Sherlock Holmes, the story is  set shortly after the Civil War and follows legendary gunslingers Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. The duo team-up to rescue the daughter of Sitting Bull, who has been kidnapped by a powerful Shaman with mysterious powers who is terrorizing the Western plains. [THR]

Oh God, the hot, vaguely ethnic sidekick, the watered-down, sugarcoated, politically-correct alternate history, the supernatural Macguffin… it sounds as if someone read Jerry Bruckheimer’s Soulless Drivel for Dummies.  And this wasn’t just an abandoned script, it was bought BY THE STUDIO THAT MADE  INCEPTION.  Ask yourself this: have you ever seen the words “powerful Shaman” show up in a good synopsis?  Last I remember it was in reference to Weekend at Bernies 2 or Like Father Like Son (with Kirk Cameron and Dudley Moore). But at the very least, this means there’s still a part for Nic Cage.

In case you were worried we wouldn’t get a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film after the fourth one hits theaters in May, fret not, this bland, sh-tty franchise will be the last thing left on Earth along with cockroaches and Taco Bell taco meat.  The writers have already been hired.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer says he has a screenplay in the works for a fifth “Pirates” tale after May’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” comes out.

Gosh, I hope it involves a curse, or a ghost, or a talking monkey, or a fat suit, or a lobotomy.

Bruckheimer says “On Stranger Tides” and future “Pirates” flicks will be stand-alone stories continuing the adventures of Depp’s woozy buccaneer Capt. Jack Sparrow.

“Woozy Buccaneer” — great name for a bar.

Directed by Rob Marshall (“Chicago”), “On Stranger Tides” sends Jack on a quest for the fountain of youth. Bruckheimer and Marshall showed off footage Tuesday at CinemaCon, a Las Vegas convention of theater owners.
“At test screenings of “On Stranger Tides,” “the audience told us what they loved about it is that it was fresh, it was new, it was a whole new story,” Bruckheimer said in an interview alongside Marshall. “As long as the audience embraces this one, we’ll certainly try to make another one. It’s really up to Johnny. He loves the character.”

“We showed this film to a whole parade of increasingly listless yokels we found loitering outside convenience stores during business hours.  They loved it, and we really tried to incorporate all of their suggestions.  We weren’t sure what ‘gravyplane’ meant, exactly, but the freshness, that was an idea we really tried to run with.”

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Deliciously feisty firecrotch Isla Fischer is set to star in Desperados, a film the LA Times is calling ‘a female Hangover.’  The LA Times must be idiots because this is blatantly a female Road Trip.  And there’s already a female Hangover, it’s called Bridesmaids.  Hey, Hollywood, how does your own tail taste?  Like snake sh*t, I bet.

Ellen Rapoport’s script, which landed on Hollywood’s esteemed Black List two years ago,  has the women heading to Mexico to set right a situation that had one of the women leaving a scathing message for a man she actually likes.

The comedy, about a trio of women on a quixotic mission, is moving forward at Universal (which, incidentally, is also behind “Bridesmaids”). Betty Thomas, the director of “Private Parts” and “Dr. Dolittle,” is set to be offered the director’s chair and is planning on accepting the job, according to  two people who were briefed on the project and were not authorized to speak about it publicly.  Isla Fisher was attached to “Desperados” last year, and the studio is currently seeking two other female leads. [LA Times]

To refresh your memory, here’s the plot of Road Trip, another Todd Phillips movie, from 2000:

Four friends take off on an 1800 mile road trip to retrieve an illicit tape mistakenly mailed to a girl friend.

And in turn, the synopsis of Overnight Delivery, a direct-to-video film from 1998 (on which Kevin Smith supposedly did an uncredited rewrite):

The main character Wyatt Trips, played by Paul Rudd, is a college student at Twin Cities College. He believes that his long-distance girlfriend, Kimberly Jasney, played by Christine Taylor, is not being faithful to him. As a result of this he goes to a strip club where he gets intoxicated and decides to send a letter to his girlfriend. With the letter he includes a picture of himself and a topless stripper. Trips soon discovers that his girlfriend was not, in fact, cheating on him, and that he has twenty-four hours to retrieve the package before it gets to his girlfriend. [Wikipedia]

First a video, then a picture, and now a phone message?  It’s like they keep re-using the same plot, but think they can trick us by going backwards with technology.  Five years from now it’s just going to be Willow Smith and Booboo Stewart chasing down a carrier pigeon.