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By now it is well known that Johnny Depp modeled his woozy but winning, sunstruck but savvy, hirsute and bangled Pirates of the Caribbean character, Captain Jack Sparrow, on swashbuckling rock ‘n’ roller Keith Richards – a man who deftly wields his guitar like a saber, his sinewy frame festooned with scarves and beads.
Richards, whose countenance wavers between vacant stare and raffish twinkle, seems a leathery buccaneer shipwrecked in a century not to his liking, swigging rum and scaling coconut trees betwixt the cerulean sky and the vasty deep.
Following a failed connection for the second Pirates film Dead Man’s Chest, which opens tomorrow across the U.S., Depp announced Tuesday in London that Richards, 62, is lined up to play Captain Jack’s piratical father in the third iteration of the salty saga, which is scheduled to resume filming next month in California and is due out in 2007.
“We’re all looking forward to the idea of Keith coming in and doing a cameo,” Depp told a London news conference. “You never say it’s definite until the guy steps on the set and the camera is rolling. But it’s looking very, very good.”
Co-star Orlando Bloom made reference to Richards’ notorious Fiji tree accident, which resulted in brain surgery on the guitarist and the postponement of the Rolling Stones’ European tour (now scheduled to begin July 11 in Milan). “I can’t wait to see him – well, if he doesn’t kill himself falling out of coconut trees,” Bloom said. “Very rock and roll.”
Another bit of interesting Pirates news slipped out at the London news conference: series producer Jerry Bruckheimer said, “We are hoping to continue the series of films. Audiences seem to love it and we love making it, so hopefully we will get the same team back together again to make another one.”
And in the real world, characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean films have been added into the swashbuckling Magic Kingdom attraction of the same name. In the updated ride, Captain Jack Sparrow and his nemesis Barbossa race each other through the familiar scenes of surprisingly lusty rapaciousness to claim a cache of plundered treasure.
