Telling Dead Man's Tales

Left: a sketch of Davy Jones (or as my friend Vic refers to him, Cthulhubeard), the villain of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, who will be played by Bill Nighy*.

Terry Rossio (screenwriter on all 3 Pirates of the Caribbean movies, along with Ted Elliot) is blogging from the set of the sequels, which are being shot back-to-back.

Rossio & Elliot also wrote Shrek, The Mask of Zorro, and Aladdin, among other screenplays. And their names are attached to Godzilla (they wrote the story for the movie that Devlin and Emmerich should have made, as I pointed out in an earlier post) and The Puppet Masters (for Rossio's take on that experience, read his essay Q: When is a Spaceship Not a Spaceship? A: When It's a Brain Coral).

*Favorite Bill Nighy roles: aging rocker Billy Mack in Love Actually, Viktor the vampire overlord in Underworld, Shaun's stepfather Philip in Shaun of the Dead, and fjord designer Slartibartfast in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.