Because the last two were SO damn good: here comes a fourth 'Pirates of the Caribbean' film

According to an article at The Hollywood Reporter.com, Walt Disney confirmed that Summer 2011 will bring us a fourth chapter in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" saga, subtitled "On Stranger Tides". Johnny Depp will return as Captain Jack Sparrow, no word on whether Kiera Knightley, Geoffrey Rush or Orlando Bloom will return as well.

Apparently, it doesn't matter that the two "Pirates" sequels, 2006's dreadful "Dead Man's Chest" and 2007's "At World's End" were, well, pretty bad. But, between the two films, they hauled in a whopping $2 billion in ticket sales. This, of course, is what matters when it comes to continues a film series, not the burning desire to tell a continuing story. If the filmmakers are smart, they will ignore the nonsense of the sequels and get back to the straightforwardness of the 2003 original (and perhaps just bring back Depp and Rush only), which might not be a great film but at least it was fun.