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!

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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Val Kilmer sizes up his future self on the set of "Snack to the Future 2"

Top Gun director Tony Scott, fresh off The Taking of Pelham 123 and Unstoppable, has tentatively climbed aboard the veritable cock pit for Top Gun 2, presumably taking time off his busy schedule playing with toy trains and making explosion sounds.  As Scott told Hitfix:

“I’m not waiting for a script. I’m going to do my homework. I’m going down to I think it’s Fallon, Nevada, down near New Mexico and it’s a whole different world now,” Scott says. “These computer geeks — these kids play war games in a trailer in Fallon, Nevada and if we ever went to war or were in the Middle East or the Far East or wherever it is, these guys can actually fly drones.  They are unmanned aircraft.  They operate them and then they party all night.”
Scott also confirmed this wouldn’t be his next film, but possibly the one immediately after.  So, a “Top Gun” sequel is still a few years away. [Hitfix]

Nerds that play video games and get drunk?  Holy sh*t, that sounds glamorous.  “Yo Icebox, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Oh yeah! I feel the need… the need… for weed!” (*takes bong rip, whiffs high five attempt*)

With 1000 douchey frat guys dressing like Maverick and Ice Man every Halloween for the past 10 years (many of them good friends of mine), it was only a matter of time before one of them would go to work for a studio and bring back Top Gun.  Which is exactly what Vulture is reporting, saying Paramount has put out offers to Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott, and hoping Chris McQuarrie (Usual Suspects, Valkyrie, The Tourist) will write the script, with a smaller role for Tom Cruise. It would have to be a different kind of script if set in the present, since the old Top Gun School in Miramar, outside San Diego, on which the original was based, has moved to Fallon, Nevada, which will really deflate a guy’s beach volleyball.

YOU CAN RIDE MY TAIL ANY TIME, VULTURE:

At a junket for Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Bruckheimer let slip  that he had been “recently approached again to start talking about [a sequel]” but noted that “the aviation community has completely changed since we made the movie a long time ago.” Since 1986, the TOPGUN syllabus has been changed so the focus is far less on the spectacular and dramatic air-to-air dogfights that defined Top Gun and far more about teaching U.S. pilots to drop very large bombs on very small ground targets.

But we’re told by a source close to the project that McQuarrie — who is friendly with Cruise — has found a way to incorporate Maverick, and what’s more, we hear that Cruise has agreed to take a smaller role in the film, provided it’s not too “obvious” a part.

We’re told that a big part of the reason [for a sequel] is the influence of David Ellison, the 27-year-old son of Oracle Corp. founder — and world’s sixth-richest man — Larry Ellison. Despite being only 3 years old when Top Gun first strafed theaters, Ellison clearly became a big fan of the film on VHS, and went on to become both an aerobatic pilot and instrument-rated commercial pilot before attending USC’s film school and then launching his own production company, Skydance. His first production was the 2006 World War I drama Flyboys, in which he also starred.

It would be an interesting move for Bruckheimer, who’s been doing nothing but horrendous piles of farts for like 15 years now.  If it’s hard to reconcile today’s Bruckheimer with the guy listed as a producer on Top Gun, Crimson Tide, Days of Thunder, and The Rock, that’s because 99% of the movies Jerry Bruckheimer produced that weren’t terrible were with his old partner, Don Simpson, who died of a drug overdose in 1996.  Vulture wonders if this possible Paramount project is Bruckheimer’s way of testing the waters away from Disney, where he’s produced most of his terrible movies since 2000.

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As if I didn’t already have enough reason to hope Jerry Bruckheimer goes missing in some sort of mysterious, CGI-related accident, it now sounds as if Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (“The One No One Wanted”) may delay the release of The Rum Diary.  We know Rum Diary is at least mostly finished and just waiting around for a release.  There’s been no word on when we might see it, but FilmSchoolRejects recently spoke to Aaron Eckhardt, whose glorious chin plays Sanderson in the movie, and he said this:

“I don’t know. I heard next year that’s [when] it’s going to come out. Johnny is making Pirates of the Caribbean and I think that he’s too busy to promote something right now. He’s working in Hawaii. I think they’re going to wait to put it out next year.”

Keep in mind this is hearsay from an actor, who’d be far from the first to know, but it’s not like I needed more reasons to hate Pirates of the Caribbean.  Although if what he says is true, it’s nice to know that Warner Independent Pictures and Co are at least planning to promote the film instead of just chucking it into a couple Landmark theaters to please the fixies and scarves crowd and calling it a day.  So maybe I shouldn’t be mad.  But I AM! I WANNA SEE THE MOVIE NOW!  (*stamps feet, pouts*)  DON’T YOU MAKE ME HOLD MY BREATH, I CAN DO THIS ALL DAY.  (*coughs up Cheeto crumbs, puffs inhaler*)

Hold on, I think the banner pic actually looks better with a chicken.