Johnny Depp is back in the new Pirates & the new Hunter S Thompson adaptation

Johnny Depp sure has been quite prolific the last few years. Last year his performances in Alice in Wonderland and The Tourist were decent but disappointing, and started feeling like perhaps he should be a bit more picky.

This year, he sinks his teeth into another Hunter S Thompson adaptation (last time was Terry Gilliam's take on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, this time it's Bruce Robinson's The Rum Diary). The plot (according to rum-diary-movie-trailer.blogspot.com) hints at quite a role for Depp:

"The Rum Diary follows Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp), a divorced alcoholic and struggling novelist who decides to kick around in San Juan until his ship comes in, working as a journalist for a newspaper that’s on its last legs, drinking gallons of rum and experimenting with LSD. With his new friend Bob Sala by his side, Kemp becomes entangled in a corrupt hotel development scheme with a slick PR consultant named Sanderson."

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - more after the cut:

Thereafter, he is back, again, as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. As terrible as the last two films in the franchise were, I loved the original, and somehow the trailer for Stranger Tides has me excited. There is reason to hope for the best: Oscar-winner Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine) has taken over directing duties and wisely puts the focus squarely on Johnny Depp, swaps Keira Knightley & Orlando Bloom for Penelope Cruz & Ian McShane and brings back Geoffrey Rush's Captain Barbossa.

I mean: Mermaids, Zombies & Black Beard. What's not to like?

Lastly, Depp reunites with Gore Verbinski - director of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (the good one) - in animation-for-grown-ups-&-kids, Rango: