This Variety story comes with a bit of mystery because I cannot find a trace of the book or author anywhere. . .

Material Entertainment has just won the rights to John Drake's debut novel Flint & Silver, an adult prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic Treasure Island. The book is set to be published later this year -- it must be much later, as there's nary a trace on Google. So all anyone knows is that it recounts the rivalry between Captain Flint and Long John Silver -- and since it's adult, it probably has wenches.

As Material is a joint venture between Entertainment Film Distributors and New Line Intl, I wonder if this will see a big release, or disappear into DVD obscurity like so many costume pieces. I certainly hope it's the former. I am always up for a swashbuckling pirate movie, and I hope this signals the first of a Jack Sparrow-inspired renaissance. I'd love to see some historical pirate tales tackled -- Calico Jack, Anne Bonny, Captain Kidd, Grace O' Malley. . .endless possibilities!

Sony has accused the Walt Disney Company of bending the rules in announcing the box office totals for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The main issue in question is whether Pirates 3 or Spider-Man 3 brought in the most gold doubloons over its first six days of worldwide release. Sony spokesman Steve Eltzer is claiming that At World's End opened in at least two areas on the previous Tuesday, which would add a seventh day of grosses to what Disney announced as a six-day record. Disney is claiming "we had previews that generated $1.4 million. And in keeping with industry practice, we rolled it into the opening day." I, Patrick Walsh, am claiming that if these people would put as much work into their movies as they do into arguing about insanely trivial financial records, moviegoers would be a hell of a lot happier.

Sony opened Spider-Man 3 on a Tuesday in some territories overseas and announced a "six-day opening record" of $232 million. Disney announced its "six-day opening record" of $251 for Pirates. And both have been grumbling and bickering back and forth ever since. "While there may or may not be other territories that opened prior to Wednesday, we believe that as more day-and-date releases enter the market, there should be a consistent standard in international box office reporting," says Eltzer. "This issue is larger than an opening-week box office statistic." Hear hear! Way to focus on the truly important issues, boys! This is a sad day indeed. I thought Hollywood was supposed to be a world of magical entertainments and childlike wonder, and now we come to find out that these people seem to be most interested in ... money? Who knew?

Strap on your eye patches, dreadlock your hair, and shove a cracker in that parrot's mouth, because from now until May 25th, you're not going to be able to avoid the media blitz for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Earlier this week we hooked you up with the trailer (if you missed it, head here), but the action moved so fast, you probably didn't get a good look at all of your favorite characters. Well, we're going to fix that for you today with some more booty from the film. And you don't need a map to find these treasures -- there's a huge batch of new photos right here.

There's a bunch of promotional material, including two versions apiece of some really cool posters, each featuring a different character. There's several shots of Keira Knightley in Asian garb, many more glimpses of Chow Yun-Fat as Chinese pirate Sao Feng, and you get to see Orlando Bloom doing both of his two "I'm acting!" faces. Unfortunately, just like with the trailer, there's no new Keith Richards in these pictures. I get the feeling they're really trying to keep a lid on Mr. Jumping Jack Flash. We're almost exactly two months away, and anticipation seems to be through the roof. I get the feeling if they revealed that At World's End was just going to be Johnny Depp sitting on the beach and eating a ham sandwich for three hours, this thing would still make $200 million.

Ahoy there! You've been eyeing your calendars. You've been counting the days. We told you it was coming, and now...it's here! And I hope you people are happy, I just sat through two hours of Dancing With The Stars to bring you a report on this thing! (Joey Fatone's going all the way this year, by the way). The official trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End was unveiled to the general public tonight during the hit ABC show. Did you see it? The preview will have its online debut in just a few minutes at 10PM Pacific Time. You can see it in hi-def at Yahoo, regular-def at Disney.com, and at "other premium online destinations." Yahoo has really been hyping the event, their site has a countdown going and everything.

I thought Dead Man's Chest was a big ol' mess (don't make me walk the plank!), but this one looks pretty sweet and I've got high hopes for the third chapter. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has been saying the first two movies were "hors d'oeuvres" compared to At World's End. And why would he lie? The new film (and the trailer) picks up where Chest left off, with Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Will Turner (Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) trying to free Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) from his trap in Davy Jones' locker. Go over and check the trailer out, it's jam-packed with crashing waves, waterfalls (the actual edge of the world?), swordfights, exploding cannons, monkey antics, wisecracks, a marriage proposal, and a very intriguing shot of a ship sailing through the desert. The gang's all accounted for (Octopus-Face! Voodoo Woman!) and it was cool to see new addition Chow Yun-Fat in the mix.

One complaint -- would have loved to see Keith Richards, but I guess they've got to keep some surprises up their sleeve. Only about two months until you can see the real deal, Pirates 3 opens on May 25th -- arrrrgh you excited?

In any war, real or started because of misleading or faulty information, there are usually two sides. The war between competing High Def DVD formats is no exception. The battle between HD DVD and Blu-Ray has raged since before either format was officially launched. More recently, there's been controversy and speculation as to what format of High Def DVD -- HD DVD or Blu-Ray -- is going to dominate a certain market. That market, of course, is porn.

As it did with the Beta vs VHS war of many years ago, porn's adoption of one High Def DVD format over another will most likely be a huge factor in whatever one eventually comes out on top. We've been covering this story here at Cinematical and as I recently wrote, it seemed as if High Def DVD was finally going to get the leg up it needed to dominate the porn market. The porn industry, it seemed, was poised to adopt HD DVD over Blu-Ray. The reason? Sony was purposely going to prevent adult content from being put onto Blu-Ray disks. But now, according to an article at EE Times, Sony is saying its not true and that they, in fact, are fine with porn producers releasing content on the Blu-Ray format.

The director of films like When a Stranger Calls (2006) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is looking to jump onto the pirate ship with his next film, although something tells me Johnny Depp will not be involved. Simon West Prods. (and if you haven't guessed by now, Simon West is the director in question) has just optioned Mark Haskell Smith's novel Salty, which West intends to produce and direct.

Smith has taken on adapting duties himself, and is almost finished with a first draft. The story is an odd one, as it revolves around a reformed sex-addicted bassist who's forced into a trip to Thailand by his ex-supermodel wife. However, once there, all hell breaks loose when she's kidnapped by a gang of pirates looking to raise money for a new boat. Says West, "It's just the thing I was looking for. It's smart, slightly twisted, slightly dark, and above all really funny with great characters." Heck, I have no idea how the main character's recent addiction to sex will come into play when his wife is kidnapped by Thai pirates, but my curiosity is definitely peeked piqued. How about yours?

It wasn't so long ago that breaking $100 million at the box office was a big deal. Now, according to boxofficemojo.com, there have been 351 movies to pull off this feat, several of them in current release: The Devil Wears Prada, Mission: Impossible III, Click, Talladega Nights, Superman Returns, The Da Vinci Code, X-Men: The Last Stand, Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. The last four cracked the all-time top 100.

Incidentally, of the top 351, 70 films have broken $200 million, 22 films have broken $300 million, 7 films have broken $400 million (Dead Man's Chest is one of them), and only one -- Titanic -- has reached $600 million.

July Fourth weekend has come and gone, and one thing has become clear: 2006 is a summer movie dud. This weekend's so-called blockbusters You, Me and Dupree and Little Man -- two of the year's worst stinkbombs -- only comfirm it.

Sure, last year was no prize either, except that George A. Romero's Land of the Dead (one of the year's best films) eventually reared its head, and if you were like me, you got a huge kick out of the final Star Wars (Revenge of the Sith). But take a look at the soulful, rich, clever, snappy cornerstones of summers past: Spider-Man 2 (2004), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Minority Report (2002), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Mission: Impossible II (2000), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Bulworth and/or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Face/Off and/or Men in Black (1997), Mission: Impossible (1996), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Speed (1994), The Fugitive and/or In the Line of Fire (1993), etc.

At a certain reduced level, the secret to a sequel is easy: More, and better. The ugly fact, though, is that Hollywood doesn't necessarily know how to make 'better' ... and the uglier fact is that they often make up for the first ugly fact by adding twice as much 'more.' So it is with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, a big-budget sequel to the satisfying pseudo-swashbuckling of 2003's The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. I loved Curse of the Black Pearl about as much as you can love a film based on a theme park ride, even if the last act of Curse went drearily on with too much ship-to-shore to-ing and fro-ing, as if you were watching a filmed re-enactment of the logic puzzle about the fox, the chicken and the bag of wheat.

But when 2003's Pirates was good, it danced; Johnny Depp played Capt. Jack Sparrow as a cross between Dean Martin and Errol Flynn, and Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley gave us a nice balance of hot and heroic. This is why it's so sad to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest -- a movie waterlogged and weighed down by plot devices and extraneous characters that's got all the sprightly grace of a man long drowned.

Dead Man's Chest starts with a bang, certainly -- with Bloom's Will Turner and Knightley's Elizabeth Swann both arrested for their complicity in helping Depp's Sparrow escape. But screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio take that nice, tight bump of a start and lard it with invention after invention, and succeed in boring the audience absolutely. There are unique keys; drawing of said unique keys; magical compasses; signifying tumors; magic jars of earth; official letters; disembodied hearts... The script for this film groans beneath object after object, quest after quest, complication after complication -- as if Elliott and Rossio had gone shopping for plot devices in the bulk aisle. It's not that Dead Man's Chest peters out in the final act; it's that it peters out in the first five minutes, with writing misfire after writing misfire. When I say 'writing misfire,' I feel obligated to give an example, so here's just one: I actually checked my watch when we had Depp, Bloom and Knightley in the same location: One hour and forty-five minutes into a two-and-a-half-hour film, and the leads are finally sharing a scene.

You'll no doubt remember all the controversy and skepticism that surrounded the production of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl... Oh wait, maybe you wouldn't remember it -- because it existed only in the deepest realms of mega-movie-geekery. Much of the skepticism and dismissive chit-chat came from the fact that the movie was based on an amusement park ride ... but the astute movie nuts knew what the problem was:

There hadn't been a good pirate movie in about three decades, and we had no reason to think that trend was about to be bucked. I know what I'm talking about, because I was one of the hand-wringers, one of the oh-so-brilliant movie nerds who knew that any sort of pirate movie was doomed from the word go. (Needless to say, in the case of The Black Pearl, I was dead wrong, and I was extremely thrilled to admit how wrong I was.)

So with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest only a few days away (and AWESOME!), I thought it might be fun to dredge back over the past few decades and dig up some of the gold-plated mega-turkeys that managed to keep the pirate genre buried at sea.