We’ve made a terrible mistake.

Oh, didn’t we mention? Tim Burton might be directing Pirates Of The Caribbean 4. It’s just a rumour for now, but Disney is thought to want to retain Burton’s services after he’s finished with Alice In Wonderland if Pirates Of The Caribbean director Gore Verbinski gets bored of it all.

Of course, hiring Tim Burton for Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 might seem like something of a risk, but it really isn’t – after all, Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 went on for about 15 hours and couldn’t have made any less sense if it was an East European claymation film about the inside of a twig, so there’s genuinely nothing that Tim Burton could do that would bugger the series up any further.

God, but Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 was rubbish, wasn’t it? It genuinely had nothing going for it – it was overlong, over-complicated and pointlessly saddled in its own mythology. Between Johnny Depp doing his funny run for the millionth time, Keira Knightley’s continued assumption that she’s funnier than she actually is and Keith Richards‘ cameo as a terminally-ill walnut, audiences everywhere were praying that someone would take the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise outside and put it out of its misery.

But it made money so, somewhat inevitably, there’s going to be a Pirates Of The Caribbean 4. It was always on the cards, what with Johnny Depp’s publicy-confessed kinship with Captain Jack Sparrow, but now it’s official.

Just the other week Johnny Depp signed a deal promising him more money than there actually is in the world to star in Pirates Of The Caribbean 4, and it’s all go. Except for one thing – who’ll direct Pirates Of The Carribean 4?

Chances are it’ll be Gore Verbinski, the director of the first three movies, but given that he’ll probably strangle himself to death on all the film’s ridiculous storylines within the first fortnight of pre-production, Disney has lined up an alternative in the wings – Tim Burton. Cinemablend reports:

If there is a single director who could make people excited for a fourth Pirates movie, it has to be Burton. He’s done so many amazing movie with Depp already, and might have the ability to make the new franchise as fresh and exciting as it was when the first movie came out. After all, Tim Burton is already making a movie for Disney, and if Alice in Wonderland is going well, you can see how they’d want to hang on to him.

Tim Burton might not be the obvious choice to direct Pirates Of The Caribbean 4, but it could definitely work. After all, with Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and the new Alice in Wonderland movie, Tim Burton has proved that he can make idiosyncratic family movies.

True, with Planet Of The Apes Tim Burton also proved that he could make films almost as bad as Pirates Of The Caribbean 3, but let’s try and put that out of our minds for the time being.

In fact, we’re positive that Tim Burton is going to make one of the best films of the series in Pirates Of The Caribbean 4. That’s because either Sacha Baron Cohen or Russell Brand is apparently being lined up to play Johnny Depp’s brother in the movie, and either of them would be a good foil.

But more importantly, though, Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 is going to be great because Orlando Bloom’s probably not going to be in it. With that in mind, Uwe Boll could direct Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 with his arse on a set made of runny shit and it’d still be better than any of the others.

Read more:

Scoop: Tim Burton Might Direct Pirates 4 – Cinemablend

But one thing you you don’t get is big-faced actresses in the middle of slightly humiliating personal meltdowns. Well, you do now, because Anne Hathaway has just signed up to star in Tim Burton’s new adaptation of Alice In Wonderland.

In Alice In Wonderland, Anne Hathaway will play the White Queen – a pretty young woman who looks a bit stupid because her boyfriend pretended to be chums with the Pope to con strangers out of millions of dollars and then ended up in jail because of it. We have no idea why Tim Burton wanted Anne Hathaway for the role.

Anne Hathaway needs to take her mind off everything at the moment. Sure, she might be earning some Oscar buzz for her turn in Rachel Getting Married – primarily, from what we can tell, for looking a bit sad in a movie filmed on a handheld camera where everyone mumbles a lot – but that hasn’t stopped people talking about her personal life.

It wasn’t so long ago that Anne Hathaway split up with her boyfriend Rafaello Follieri right before he was arrested for defrauding people by playing up his connections to the Vatican in a dodgy property scam. Even now, during the promotion for Rachel Getting Married, Anne Hathaway only gets asked questions about what it’s like to have a big wanker for a boyfriend.

So it’s only natural for Anne Hathaway to want to get away from all that – and she’s planning to do that by starring in Tim Burton’s new Alice in Wonderland movie – a movie that will also star Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp. And nobody else. Probably. BBC News reports:

Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter are to star in Tim Burton’s Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, according to US media. The Hollywood Reporter says Brokeback Mountain star Hathaway will play the White Queen while Burton’s fiancee Bonham Carter will play the Red Queen. Burton’s take on Lewis Carroll’s novel is slated for release in March 2010.

It almost seems as if Anne Hathaway is deliberately trying to make as many different films as she can. She’s done kid’s films, romantic comedies, indie movies, arthouse movies, summer comedies and, in Havoc, badly-advised movies about nothing where she got to take off her top and pretend to have a wank. And now she’s doing a Gothic fantasy adaptation of a beloved novel.

Wonderful – that only leaves straight-to-DVD Steven Seagal action movies and porn on Anne Hathaway’s movie genre checklist. And we do love Steven Seagal. But what’s Alice in Wonderland actually going to be like?

Well, since Alice in Wonderland is a Tim Burton movie that stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, it’s probably fair to describe it as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory but without all the boring parts where people break into song for no reason. Or, if you’re feeling kinder, Sweeney Todd but without all the boring parts where people break into song for no reason. Or, if you’re feeling kinder still, The Corpse Bride but without all the boring parts where people break into song for no reason.

Unless in Alice In Wonderland people do break into song for no reason. In which case we’re all buggered.

Just ask Helena Bonham Carter, who – after appearing in every Tim Burton movie made this millennium – has just had Tim Burton's baby girl. Details on Helena Bonham Carter's baby girl are scant at the moment, so it's not known if Tim Burton managed to film the birth or. Let's hope he didn't, since Johnny Depp would have been contractually expected to follow the baby by crawling out of Helena Bonham Carter's gore-soaked ladybits, only to jig around the maternity ward covered in blood and amniotic fluid singing a pretty little song about how nice it is to get your hair cut.

Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton have just had a baby. There's nothing spectacularly shocking about that since Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton told everyone that they were having a baby back in August – although we now know that the Bonham Carter Burton baby is a little girl, as opposed to a boy or one of those massive double-mouthed black and white striped sand-worms from Beetlejuice, which we think could have been a possibility.

But that's about it – nobody knows what Helena Bonham Carter's baby is called yet. And since Bonham Carter and Tim Burton famous live in separate houses next to each other with adjoining doors, nobody really knows what the baby care situation will be either, although logic dictates that they'll just plonk the baby in a corridor and take turns getting her when she cries too loudly or the smell of baby-poo becomes too overwhelming. It's what we'd do, anyway.

That wasn't really addressed in the baby statement from Helena Bonham Carter's slave, and more's the pity. But what was said was this:

"They are absolutely delighted they have a daughter. It's a lovely Christmas present for the family."

A lovely Christmas present, yes, but not a Nintendo Wii, which is what we hear Tim Burton really wanted – as such, we hear that Tim Burton is sulking because Helena didn't manage to squeeze one of those out from her tumpsy like he asked.

However, the baby couldn't have come at a better time for Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton, because it's happened days after each of them received Golden Globe nominations for their respective work on Sweeney Todd – Tim Burton is in the running for Best Director while Helena Bonham Carter has got a nod for Best Actress.

But it doesn't matter if either of them win their Golden Globes at all, because their new baby girl is the biggest award of them all. A big fleshy award that shits everywhere, cries a lot and in 20 years't time will constantly feel guilty for never calling them. Which puts it roughly in league with a National Board Of Review award.

Read more:

It's a Girl for Bonham Carter and Burton – E! Online 

Seriously, that’s how diseases spread. 

We’re not the only ones who celebrate an unconventional holiday. Lance Bass likes to cover his trees in some sort of spray-on ham. We made that up. Gary Coleman plays Deck the Halls on a wide variety of musical saws and cat skulls. We made that up. Tim Burton drapes his tree with dead babies.

We didn’t make that up.  

Tim Burton has been dating Helena Bonham Carter for years. They have a kid together, they live next door to each other, and we even heard they have one of those tin can/string phones set up connecting the two properties. What we’re saying here is they are totally long term.

Point is – if anyone knows Burton’s weird holiday decorating tendencies, its Carter. She said:  

"Tim decorates the Christmas tree with dead babies and slime balls and things. It looks lovely and glittery from afar, and then as you get closer, you realise it's rather gory.” 

We don’t think anything’s wrong with that. Our kitchen is tiled entirely in dried hamsters, which really makes us feel a kinship with Burton. We’d feel more of a kinship if Winona Rider ever had a foetus cut its way out of her in an Edward Scissorhands sequel.  Put down your cow intestine tinsel and hop to Burton. Let's get it out for Christmas. 

Read More: 

Helena Bonham Carter's Slime Christmas – Monsters & Critics