Last week, we moaned about the fact that another Pirates of the Caribbeanfilm looked set to sally forth on to the high seas. Signals from HMS Hollywood now suggest that the project may be in danger of running aground. (Is that enough maritime metaphors?)

On hearing that Dick Cook, hitherto the chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, was to resign his post, Johnny Depp expressed reservations about returning as Capt Jack Sparrow. “There’s a fissure, a crack in my enthusiasm at the moment,” Depp said. “It was all born in that office.”

Mind you, there is now, one assumes, a possibility that the

Pirates

project could go ahead without Depp. Oh dear.