A former Captain Hook is Blackbeard for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4?

Ian McShane, I would bet by his own admission, has kinda been goofing around a little since the amazing HBO show Deadwood finished after a criminally short three seasons four years ago. A couple of fantasy parts for kids (The Golden Compass, The Seeker), a bit of awesome scene chewing in 44 Inch Chest and Death Race, and ironically - lending his voice for the role of Captain Hook in the third Shrek movie, among a few other things and so what? He's enjoying himself and he's been paid shed loads to do it. And today, he won himself the big one. According to The Hollywood Reporter, McShane is in talks to play the villainous Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, the main anatognist in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - where he can sun it up in Hawaii alongside beautiful and talented people (Johnny Depp reprises as Jack Sparrow, Penelope Cruz joins the franchise as the new love interest) and if the part is written as well as Captain Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush is also expected to return) - have as much fun on screen as he's ever had in his career. McShane probably won't need to do much make-up either, he could come on set pretty much looking like a pirate. I don't think anyone can deny how suitable McShane is for this. The rather unnecessary FOURTH adventure in the series (crikey!) revolves around the desperate attempt to unearth the fountain of youth, and it'll be released May 2011. New director Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine) has nailed the casting on this fourth movie - and hell yeah, Cruz as a pirate wrench/McShane as Blackbeard most definitely wins my ticket. No matter if the movie is bad, I wanna see these two in this genre.

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Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.