Russell Brand in "Pirates of the Caribbean IV"?

[Bob The Skutter]

What controversy would that be?

On his radio show he and Jonathan Ross made a series of prank calls to a "Beloved" character actor (Andrew Sachs of Faulty Towers fame) and began leaving answer machine messages telling him repeatedly how he shagged his granddaughter.
The tabloids made a huge thing out of it, blowing it out of all proportion and calling for his and Jonathan Ross' heads. Russell Brand apologised and quit. Jonathan Ross was suspended and he made apologies. It was pathetic, childish and not really funny, but it was ludicrous how the media went on about it.

That's it? From all the fuss I thought the guy ran over a little girl or something.

That seemed to be the majority of the country's reaction too. But the tabloids kept trying to stir it up, and it dominated the news for ages, when basically any sane person couldn't give a shit about it.

 

[Procutus]

You know what Pirates needs? Mermaids.

Combine that with the other guy's Allison Mack idea and we're golden!

Megan Fox and Diora Baird as mermaids, with Ally as a pirate, yeah! And bring back Zoe Saldana as AnnaMaria. After Star Trek opens in May, she's going to be a big name.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Another idea for what Russell Brand could be doing in the movie. Now, Johnny Depp has called pirates the rock stars of their era. Suppose Brand does to Jack Sparrow what Jonah Hill did to Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. What if Brand's character is an obsessed Captain Jack fan & imitator? (Mostly, I want to see Jack's reactions to this; something along the lines of, "You realize this was my personal vision of Hell.")

 

[Praetor]

Now that I would laugh at.

 

[diankra]

On his radio show he and Jonathan Ross made a series of prank calls to a "Beloved" character actor (Andrew Sachs of Faulty Towers fame) and began leaving answer machine messages telling him repeatedly how he shagged his granddaughter.
The tabloids made a huge thing out of it, blowing it out of all proportion and calling for his and Jonathan Ross' heads. Russell Brand apologised and quit. Jonathan Ross was suspended and he made apologies. It was pathetic, childish and not really funny, but it was ludicrous how the media went on about it.

That's it? From all the fuss I thought the guy ran over a little girl or something.

That seemed to be the majority of the country's reaction too. But the tabloids kept trying to stir it up, and it dominated the news for ages, when basically any sane person couldn't give a shit about it.

Always be wary of thinking you know what 'the majority' or 'any sane person' would think about things, when none of us really know any more than what a fe dozen friends and relatives think.

Personally, I thought that when Ross'n'Brand started going into belly laughs about how Andrew Sachs might be so upset he'd kill himself, and the stuff about how they ought to break into his house to wipe the answerphone tape to avoid that, and if it turned out Sachs was already there, then they could try shagging him too and see if it made him any happier, was so far over the line that I couldn't understand anyone thinking it was funny - and whereas I'd defend bad taste to the hilt when Chris Morris does it on somethign like Brass Eye, this just seemed pointlessly nasty.

But equally, I don't listen to the show, and I'd never have heard about this if it hadn't been all over the papers. So you can pay your money and takes your choice as to whether it was unacceptable, or just stuff Brand's audience would expect and which nobody else would have heard about if the Daily Mail hadn't needed something to get angry about that week.
Or even both.

Anyway, regardless of whether 'Sachsgate' deserved to be such a big fuss, it's had a lot of lasting effects on British radio - the other chap involved, Jonathan Ross, had his two main series (the BBC's main movie review programme, Film 2009, and his big end of week chat show) taken off air for three months; the controller of the radio station it was all on, which is the highest rating one in the UK, took responsibility and resigned; and there's a bunch of new rules been brought in to avoid the situation that had apparently developed on the Brand show (basically, that the show was made for the BBC by his company, so the producer who was supposed to say no to the star if he went too far was also working for the star, who could sack him...).

And we now return you to discussion of whether he'd be any good in Pirates IV, and I'll stick with 'Who'd pay attention to the knock-off with the real thing in the same movie?'

 

[Bob The Skutter]

That's it? From all the fuss I thought the guy ran over a little girl or something.

That seemed to be the majority of the country's reaction too. But the tabloids kept trying to stir it up, and it dominated the news for ages, when basically any sane person couldn't give a shit about it.

Always be wary of thinking you know what 'the majority' or 'any sane person' would think about things, when none of us really know any more than what a fe dozen friends and relatives think.

Personally, I thought that when Ross'n'Brand started going into belly laughs about how Andrew Sachs might be so upset he'd kill himself, and the stuff about how they ought to break into his house to wipe the answerphone tape to avoid that, and if it turned out Sachs was already there, then they could try shagging him too and see if it made him any happier, was so far over the line that I couldn't understand anyone thinking it was funny - and whereas I'd defend bad taste to the hilt when Chris Morris does it on somethign like Brass Eye, this just seemed pointlessly nasty.

But equally, I don't listen to the show, and I'd never have heard about this if it hadn't been all over the papers. So you can pay your money and takes your choice as to whether it was unacceptable, or just stuff Brand's audience would expect and which nobody else would have heard about if the Daily Mail hadn't needed something to get angry about that week.
Or even both.

Anyway, regardless of whether 'Sachsgate' deserved to be such a big fuss, it's had a lot of lasting effects on British radio - the other chap involved, Jonathan Ross, had his two main series (the BBC's main movie review programme, Film 2009, and his big end of week chat show) taken off air for three months; the controller of the radio station it was all on, which is the highest rating one in the UK, took responsibility and resigned; and there's a bunch of new rules been brought in to avoid the situation that had apparently developed on the Brand show (basically, that the show was made for the BBC by his company, so the producer who was supposed to say no to the star if he went too far was also working for the star, who could sack him...).

And we now return you to discussion of whether he'd be any good in Pirates IV, and I'll stick with 'Who'd pay attention to the knock-off with the real thing in the same movie?'

Come off it, you know by the end of it practically everyone was sick of hearing about it. They even kept going on about it after Andrew Sachs said he wished they'd let it drop... shows how much they actually cared what he thought about it.
And the Mail didn't even pick up on it until a week after it had been aired, and half it wasn't even aired they just got ahold of the full recording.
Not that I'm defending what Wossy and Brand were saying, it was immature shit, and not funny, but it was way over blown by a tabloid that just wanted to stir shit with the BBC.

As for Pirates, as with anything else, I'll reserve judgement until I see it.

 

[diankra]

[SNIP]
And the Mail didn't even pick up on it until a week after it had been aired, and half it wasn't even aired they just got ahold of the full recording.
Not that I'm defending what Wossy and Brand were saying, it was immature shit, and not funny, but it was way over blown by a tabloid that just wanted to stir shit with the BBC.
[SNIP]

Actually, I agree with you 100 percent on that - it was schoolboy bullying, and it was blown out of all proportion to get at the BBC. Sadly successfully, but that just makes me dislike Brand more, as the BBC as a whole is a bit more valuable than him (even without Doctor Who!).

 

[Dream]

Another idea for what Russell Brand could be doing in the movie. Now, Johnny Depp has called pirates the rock stars of their era. Suppose Brand does to Jack Sparrow what Jonah Hill did to Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. What if Brand's character is an obsessed Captain Jack fan & imitator? (Mostly, I want to see Jack's reactions to this; something along the lines of, "You realize this was my personal vision of Hell.")

That might be fun for the first 5 minutes but would get old quick.

 

[Mr Nighttime]

I was so disappointed in the last film, that I really don't care what they do now, or who they cast.

Quoted for truth.