Pirates in the Media: December 10, 2009

Bruce Wayne is lost in a time stream in an upcoming 6 comic release from DC.

That's right Pirate Batman.

In addition, Rob Marshall, director of the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" is excited to work with Johnny Depp. And who wouldn't be?

"I think [Disney is] probably looking for a fresh approach," he explained. "I think it's good when you're doing these series' of films, like 'Harry Potter.' It's nice to bring in a fresh approach." The real question is, how does Marshall define "fresh"?

"I don't know yet. Johnny's playing Captain Jack, so that's there," he revealed. "It'll be its own thing. I'll approach it as a film." This confirmation is at odds with that he'd only do another "Pirates" if he read a script that was "worthy of the audience's attention," but Marshall is pretty sure the actor is in.

Taking a break from his busy Dinosaur Skull purchasing schedule; as part of a UN Goodwill tour, Nicolas Cage met with imprisoned pirates in Kenya.

The actor visited Shimo La Tewa prison in the Kenyan coastal town of Mombasa to interact with suspected Somali pirates awaiting trial and know the reason behind the increase in piracy in the Indian Ocean.

Also, Michael Crichton, who died in 2008, is going to have his final manuscript, Pirate Lattitudes posthumously published. The film rights have been secured by Stephen Spielberg.

Set in the Caribbean in 1665, Latitudes is nothing like Crichton's last novel, Next (2006), a cautionary tale about genetic research. It's more history as entertainment, as in The Great Train Robbery (1975), which he set in Victorian England.

It stars a dashing Harvard-educated English privateer, Charles Hunter. With the colonial governor's unofficial blessing, he sets out to capture a Spanish galleon laden with treasure.

The novel is laden with violence and sex. Throats are cut, along with less public body parts.

There's little of what English teachers call "character development." But what colorful characters, including a tough female pirate who dresses as a man. In raids, she's in the "habit of baring her breasts in order to confuse and terrify the enemy."

Crichton has done his homework on nautical matters. His cinematic descriptions and sex scenes waste few words.

If that's not enough, there's a hurricane and sea monster that should put Spielberg's special-effects team to the test.