A few days ago Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook announced that after 38 years of working at the house of mouse he was stepping down. Now why would anybody care about some studio guy stepping down? Well, in this case his departure actually matters and you should care. That is, at least, if you are a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean and would like to see the franchise continue, because it was Cook who first brought Johnny Depp, the star of the franchise, aboard, and now that Cook is gone, Depp is having doubts about whether or not to continue with the project or even stay with Disney at all.

When the LA Times asked Depp about Cook's sudden departure, he revealed that he was both "shocked and very sad" to hear that Cook was leaving Disney, and that Cook had actually told it to him over the phone a few hours before announcing it to the public. The whole thing had made a crack in his enthusiasm for the fourth Pirates film, as all his involvement in the franchise started in Cook's office, whom he refers to as the sweetest man on the planet.

This doesn't look good for the fourth pirate film, since if Depp were to drop out, there wouldn't really be anything to make the movie about. Depp and his alter ego Jack Sparrow are the core of the franchise and without him both the entertainment value and the audience would drop in large amounts. One also has to wonder why Cook would suddenly leave Disney. Perhaps problems regarding the acquisition of Marvel? With them now owning Marvel they might want to slow down their own production of films and just reap the Marvel franchises and collect licensing fees from all the other major studios. But who knows, it could be a lot of things and whatever it is Johnny Depp isn't happy about it!