In the four movies thus far released in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, there have been several interesting casting coups. The one that people seem to talk about the most, however, was the choice in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End to cast rock guitarist Keith Richards as the father of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow. (Partly because Johnny Depp had reportedly based Jack Sparrow on Keith Richards). The fifth film in the franchise will be next year’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which Disney has scheduled for May 26, 2017, and started filming in Australia last year. This week, we learned that Disney and directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki) have decided to resume filming to introduce a new character. That character will be played by Paul McCartney, whose nature hasn’t been revealed yet, except that he will be the center of an “extra big set piece.” The most obvious significance of Paul McCartney joining Pirates of the Caribbean is that he brings The Beatles to a franchise that already had one of the Rolling Stones. Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, and Orlando Bloom are all returning for this fifth film, and they will be joined by new characters played by Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario, and David Wenham
