It’s like the old showbiz adage goes: it ain’t over ’til the treasured British pop icon sings. Directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg had wrapped shooting on Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but an unexpected development in the personnel department compelled them to reopen this closed case and shoot one more reportedly massive setpiece, all to accommodate a new addition to the cast. None other than Sir Paul McCartney has come aboard, according to an exclusive from Deadline, and the newly added scene revolves around him.
McCartney’s entrance to the swashbuckling world of Pirates comes as something of an odd fit, even more so when inevitably juxtaposed with Keith Richards’ appearances in the third and fourth installments. (Also, by the time Dead Men Tell No Tales debuts on the scheduled date of May 26, 2017, it will have been six years since the last Pirates film. This franchise is an odd fit in the present in general.) Richards slipped into the welcomingly scuzzy vibe that producer Jerry Bruckheimer has always fostered in the series, his boozy rock-star vibe meshing perfectly with the jolly scoundrels filling every frame. In fact, Johnny Depp has even cited Keith Richards as one of his primary influences when constructing the Jack Sparrow character, along with cartoon skunk Pepé Le Pew, which, sure.
McCartney, however, never had the same bad-boy vibe that made Richards a rock god. He wasn’t smearing eyeliner around his face and suckling fifths of gin onstage back in the day; in the present, he contents himself with adding the occasional whistled melody to Kanye West tracks. His role has not yet been specified, but how he’ll fit into the rough-and-tumble fantasy Caribbean of the films will be curious to watch.
