Verbinski Upgrades

This is a much better choice for his next film.

It's no longer a pirate's life for Gore Verbinski.

After spending the better part of the last six years directing the "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy, which grossed $2.6 billion worldwide, Verbinski has informed Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer that he will not helm a fourth installment that's expected to set sail in 2010 with Johnny Depp back as Captain Jack Sparrow.

Sequel is in development but not yet greenlit. It's unknown how Verbinski's ankling will affect the pic's schedule.

Verbinski will instead focus on other projects that include "Bioshock," a Universal Pictures adaptation of the bestselling vidgame that has a John Logan script and is likely to be Verbinski's next film as a director.

If you are not familiar with the game, Bioshock is, in many ways, a work of art in first-shooter form. It has a deep storyline that delves into Ayn Rand's pseudo-philosophy of Objectivism among other things. It's a fantastic game and begs to become a feature film. Verbinski and Logan would have to work at screwing up this film to not have it work.

And Pirates...after At World's End, didn't everyone feel the string was played out on this series? Where's the justification for a fourth film beyond greed? Films made for that reason tend to not work out too well. Nevertheless, although the quality will suck I am sure enough people will turn out to make it all worthwhile for Depp to revisit the role of Jack Sparrow one more time.