From the “what if” files, right after I ponder what my life would be like had Diora Baird not taken out that restraining order against me, comes this story, about how Johnny Depp’s role as Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean was originally written for Hugh Jackman.  I can’t imagine Hugh Jackman turning down an opportunity to prance around wearing eyeliner, but that’s what it says.

“I initially wrote that character with Hugh Jackman in mind,” screenwriter Stuart Beattie told Pop Tarts at the Advance Lounge Chair series in Los Angeles. “Hence the name Captain JACK Sparrow.”

At the time, Jackman was a prominent actor in Beattie’s homeland of Australia, but was not yet a big on the international scene, prompting the folks at Disney to dismiss Beattie’s casting contribution and instead hunt down Johnny Depp for the role.

“I spent ten years pitching it Disney and they weren’t interested,” Beattie, who went on to write a string of other big-budget, epic films such as “Collateral,” “G.I Joe: Rise of the Cobra,” Australia” and “30 Days of Night,” added. “Then finally, I got a call to come back in.”[FoxNews]

Gosh, could you imagine if it had been a different A-list actor toplining a Jerry Bruckheimer air fart?  Who knows how things would’ve have turned out. Would Pirates still be filming a third sequel? Would we still have a black president?  My God, it’s like the butterfly effect.

Oh sure, now he’s holding a bulldog in a sweater. Now I feel like a real assh*le for making fun of him.  I swear, you could hand Hitler a dog in a sweater and I’d be all, “Aww, maybe the Jews are bad.”

Those five question marks are for the gamers out there who actually care about this stuff, and because the English language doesn’t have punctuation for a dismissive wank (YET).  Anyway, IESB is claiming a triple confirmed sexclusive that Steven Spielberg will be producing a Halo movie, a project last rumored to be stalled with Peter Jackson and Neil Blomkamp.

Spielberg is blown away by writer Stuart Beattie’s take on the game in his script entitled HALO THE FALL OF REACH. This coupled with the fact that his Dreamworks umbrella is looking for a big tent pole to help launch their newly independant studio with distribution over at Walt Disney Pictures after losing Transformers to Paramount in the separation, it’s the perfect combination.

HALO, the wildly popular video games, follow Master Chief, a cybernetically-enhanced human super-soldier, and his artificial intelligence companion, Cortana, as they aide future humanity in battling the Covenant, a theocratic alliance of alien races. [IESB]

“Blown away”, eh?  That’s a pretty strong statement.  But somehow I don’t trust the judgment of a guy who was okay with nuking a fridge, Shia Labeouf swinging through the jungle with an army of monkeys, and pretty much the entire plot of the last Transformers movie.  Not that I blame him.  Steven Spielberg’s style of producing is a lot like mine would be if I were him, the yeah-whatever-dude, I’m-taking-b-loads school of movie producing. Also, Halo?  More like GAYlo. AHAHA, SUCK IT, GAMERS!  (*makes ‘suck it’ x over crotch with hands while thrusting*)