Ahoy, mateys! Pirates in Hawaii!

You may be aware that Disney & Co. is working on a fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. I remember my friend taking me to see the first movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl, for my birthday. Considering the quality of the recent movies adapted from Disney World rides/shows (Haunted Mansion, Country Bears), it could have been pretty bad (though since we were both Orlando Bloom fans I guess we weren't very concerned about that). But it turned out being a delightful surprise, funny and entertaining, and Johnny Depp's performance as Captain Jack Sparrow was classic (and Oscar nominated). The two sequels were disappointments, but they still made a ton of money, and Disney wanted more. The fourth movie will not have Orlando Bloom or Keira Knightley, though Depp will be returning. Really, what is Pirates without Captain Jack Sparrow?

As it turns out, Pirates 4: On Stranger Tides is currently filming on O'ahu, where I live. Apparently they will be filming sections of the movie on both O'ahu and Kaua'i; Maui and Moloka'i were used for small parts of Pirates 3. The islands have been chosen for their range of beautiful land and seascapes, and of course for the tax incentives. The state estimates that the movie could bring in $85 million to Hawaii, which is sorely needed as the largely tourism-based economy has been hurting in the global economic crisis.

Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz arrived on the island for filming about a week ago. While they are pretty hard to spot, there are some players in the movie that are much more difficult to hide: the pirate ships. One of the pirate ships for the movie is currently docked in Kaneohe Bay, and the Housemate and I went out to see it on Saturday morning.

The end of the dock is blocked off, so the public can only get so close to the ship. If I had a boat I could get closer (harder for them to block off the water), but it wasn't a bad view. From what I can gather, this ship has been used as the Black Pearl, but in its current state it is "playing" Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's ship (Blackbeard will be played by Ian McShane). I guess ships as well as people can put on different outfits and play different characters.

Queen Anne's Revenge, from the dock. Click for a larger view.

The big white cube in the middle may be a light that they use when they shoot at night.

Blown up detail shots:

The flag


The skeleton figurehead

Total grainy zoom paparazzi shot.

The cage of skeletons hanging off the stern


View from the beach


Me and the ship!

Bonus geek points if you can identify the shirt.

The pirate ship wasn't the only thing to see on the trip. This is a different view from the dock.


The mountains were pretty cloudy and rainy. Here's a photo I snapped from the car on the way back.


And another photo taken out the car window


I don't know whether the fourth Pirates movie will restore the franchise to its former glory or send it down to Davy Jones' locker. Hopefully the new blood (new cast members and new director) will make it fresh again. Either way, I'll probably see it, and I'll be keeping an eye out for any familiar sights.

Daisies airs, Fringe goes viral, Star Trek coolness, and more

Well, the stories have been collecting since my last entertainment news post...

Robert Downey Jr. has confirmed that Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson, Garry Shandling, Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson, Sam Rockwell, and Gwyneth Paltrow will all be in the Iron Man 2 cast (IMDb). Rourke has been cast as Whiplash, Johansson will play Black Widow, and Sam Rockwell will play Justin Hammer. Cheadle takes over the role of Rhodey from Terrence Howard. Paltrow will reprise her role as Pepper Potts, and Jackson will return as Nick Fury. I'm not sure at this point who Garry Shandling will play. I loved the first Iron Man movie, so I'm looking forward to this one.

Universal Pictures, which made a three-year production pact with Dark Horse Comics, is planning to make an "Umbrella Academy" movie (Variety). The story is about a dissolved band of superheroes who reunite following their adoptive father's death to carry out his plan to save the world. Mark Bomback, who wrote Disney's recent Race to Witch Mountain, has been chosen to write the adaptation. The Witch Mountain credit doesn't make me immediately confident, but we'll see how it goes.

Gore Verbinski has told Disney that he is done with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (Variety). He will not be directing the planned Pirates 4 film, instead choosing to move on to other projects, including a movie adaptation of the video game BioShock (which came up briefly in a post I wrote last July). Verbinski's Blind Wink Prods. is also working on a movie adaptation of Hasbro game Clue and a drama based on the Wall Street Journal article about how online fantasy roleplaying (particularly focusing on Second Life) can negatively affect people's real world lives.

Michael Sheen has been cast as a vampire in Twilight sequel New Moon (IMDb, Variety). He will play Aro, the head of Italian vampire clan the Volturi. New Moon director Chris Weitz says of the character, "Aro is, on the surface, a very gracious and friendly vampire, but beneath that he is a tremendous threat." I have never read any of the books, so I don't know the characters, but judging by Weitz's description, Sheen is probably a good fit for the role. He can transition easily from gracious and friendly to threatening and dangerous, and he is overall a very talented actor. However, the first role I ever saw Michael Sheen play was the werewolf Lucian in Underworld. I think having Sheen play a vampire violates some sort of... mythical creature law, and we all may be in very grave danger.

ABC has announced they will air the leftover episodes of some of their cancelled series on Saturday nights at 10:00 starting May 30 (Variety). This means that the final three episodes of my dear show Pushing Daisies will finally be aired from May 30-June 13. Eli Stone, which I also followed, will have its final unaired episodes shown from June 20-July 11. Though I'm still sad these shows were cancelled, I am glad that I'll get to see whatever the shows' creative teams managed to pull together to end the series. Before I go and buy the complete DVD set of Pushing Daisies.

Speaking of cancelled series, while FOX is still not ready to make an official announcement, Entertainment Weekly has confirmed that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles will not be returning for a third season (EW.com). Season 2 ended last week with some pretty exciting revelations and cliffhangers, but I think it was a satisfying end for the show. The question now is What will Summer Glau do next?

FOX is conducting some sort of viral campaign for Fringe (Variety). Michael Cerveris has appeared in character as the mysterious Observer at a number of live events broadcast on FOX, including American Idol, an NFL divisional playoff game, and a NASCAR race. FOX has not commented on the campaign, possibly to make the promotion a little more mysterious, but due to the character's hairless nature, insiders have apparently nicknamed the campaign the "Where's Baldo?" initiative. I am much amused. Unfortunately, I don't watch any of these live shows on FOX, but viewers have posted clips on YouTube, and FOX has not been complaining about it. See them here: Idol, NFL, NASCAR (I'm pretty sure the Lance Reddick voiceover in the latter two clips was added and not actually aired live).

Finally, I must admit I'm getting pretty psyched about the new Star Trek movie coming out on May 8. I am totally jealous of the people who got to see it at the surprise screening of the movie in Austin on April 6 (NYTimes blog). I'm really not any sort of Star Trek fanatic; I consider myself a casual fan of The Next Generation, but the only original Star Trek that I've seen is the whale movie. I am, however, a fan of J.J. Abrams, and I'm excited about what he's done with the franchise (i.e., reboot it with a cool movie that is accessible to people like me). I am also totally digging the cast. The only movie I've actually seen with Chris Pine (Kirk) is The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement (yes, I've seen it), but he's cute and, from what I can tell from the trailers, good for the part. Zachary Quinto (Spock), of course, is Sylar from Heroes. I'm still not sure about his voice (Leonard Nimoy has such a nice deep voice, which is not Quinto's natural tone), but I'm still rooting for him. Simon Pegg (Scotty) is hilarious and brilliant (I loved him in Hot Fuzz... still haven't seen Shaun of the Dead). Karl Urban (Bones) was Eomer. Zoe Saldana (Uhura) I noticed in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie because I already knew her from that ballet movie Center Stage (her big screen debut). John Cho (Sulu) is Harold of Harold & Kumar, which is awesome. And Anton Yelchin gets two super summer blockbusters within two weeks of each other, playing not only Chekov in Star Trek but Kyle Reese in Terminator: Salvation, which opens in theaters on May 21. Busy kid. I really hope the movie lives up to all the buzz. I can't wait.

Emmys, Pirates 4, and Spider-Man: The Musical

Well, it's been an interesting week. All sorts of... things... have been happening in the big scary Real World. But what news from the entertainment industry?

The week started off with the 60th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards. You may have read that the show was bad (since judging by the numbers you didn't actually watch it yourself). Well, as someone who managed to watch the first half hour, I can tell you that whatever you read was probably accurate. I never had much respect for the nominated reality show hosts, but Sunday night showed me how right I was to withhold my respect. In any case, the only show I watch that won on Sunday was Pushing Daisies, with the Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series win for Barry Sonnenfeld. Congrats to him. I guess I've also recently picked up watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, now that I've discovered they put the episodes up on Hulu the day after they air (I don't get Comedy Central). All the excitement of current events has given them more good material than they could have ever hoped for, so the shows have been particularly sharp and entertaining recently. Anyway, they each won an Emmy, so congrats to them, too. I'd given up watching the Emmy telecast, though, before the Daily Show got up there. I think I turned it off shortly after poor Josh Groban sang his misguided theme song medley.

Speaking of really dumb shows, I was pleased to see Hole in the Wall ranked number one on Entertainment Weekly's list of The 10 Dumbest TV Shows of 2008. I have to say that I found the initial trailers for this show hilarious. Seeing clip after clip of people looking in wide-eyed terror at the approaching wall, contorting themselves into some awkward position, then being inevitably swept into the water was surprisingly entertaining. Simple minds, simple pleasures, I guess. Watching Ellen DeGeneres do a version of the game on her show with random audience members or--better yet--guests, was also highly amusing (though not quite as funny as Ellen's new game, "Aw, snap!"). But when I saw part of the actual Hole in the Wall show that Fox tucked in after the season premiere of Fringe, I was not amused at all. I think part of the humor in the game on Ellen's show was the fact that these were poor unsuspecting people who were called out of the audience, plunked in front of the moving wall, and forced to make a valiant effort to keep on their feet. And then it was over, whether they succeeded or not. In the montage of the trailer, the contestants had the same appearance. But in the actual show, you realize that these people wanted to be there. They signed up. They thought they'd be good at it. They actually trash-talk the other team. And then they go and make fools of themselves. And then they do it again. All the while, an audience pumped with more excitement than they have a right to cheers on, and the unnecessary two hosts yell into microphones as if they're having fun. You can be sure I won't be tuning into that show again. The concept of the show is funny (and owed to the original Japanese version) and makes for amusing snapshots. But as an actual TV show? Dumb.

Mid-week, Disney announced their plans for a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean installment (see Variety article). I'll be the first to say that Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow is brilliant. And Curse of the Black Pearl was one of the most pleasant surprises in my cinema-going experience (I mean, I'd actually seen the Country Bears movie, sadly, so I wasn't expecting all that much from a movie based on a Disney ride). But I think I'd be a slightly happier person if the sequels had never been made. Maybe a third sequel will redeem the other two, but more likely, it will just be another bad (though lucrative) idea. In other sequel news, it looks like they're planning to make an I Am Legend prequel with Will Smith reprising his role as Robert Neville. A prequel is smart, since a sequel would have had some difficulties (Gotta love how none of the articles about the prequel announcement care about spoilers. When does a movie lose the privilege of spoiler warnings? After it leaves theaters? After it comes out on DVD?). But I wasn't really a fan of the first movie, so I have doubts as to how good a prequel could be.

And lastly, in case you haven't heard yet, Julie Taymor (Across the Universe, The Lion King Broadway show) is making a musical version of Spider-Man which will be released in 2009. I am reminded of a trivia question from one of those series of trivia/quotes/photos/movie moments that loops on the screen in the movie theater before the movie starts and you realize that you're already out of popcorn. I'd like to tell you the question was about Spider-Man, but I think it was actually about The Hulk:
"Was the Hulk originally a 1) TV show 2) Musical or 3) A comic book?"
Well, first of all, duh! And second, Hulk: The Musical?! The idea of it had me laughing out loud in the theater. And now an accomplished Broadway director is making Spider-Man: The Musical. I have to say, I think Spider-Man is significantly better suited to musical form than the Hulk (though is that saying much?). In fact, I saw Spider-Man Rocks in Universal Studios Hollywood, and it was pretty entertaining. But a short show at a theme park venue is a little different from a full length Broadway show. Well, it could turn out to be embarrassing, but hopefully it will be great. Wish I were living close to New York so I could see it.

Now that I've written this post, I've realized most of the stories are pretty negative. That was not my intention. Oh well. I guess that's just the world I've been living in this past week.