Yes, he is. In fact, I saw a leaked production photo of Depp and Richards in full costume last week. My first reaction was, "My God! Keith Richards is wearing such unrealistic prosthetic makeup that he looks like an animatronic pirate from the ride!". Then I looked up some other pictures and discovered that he wasn't wearing any makeup.
I have high hopes for this one eventhough I didn't care for Dead's Man Chest. I LOVED Curse of the Black Pearl. LOVED it...one of my faves. An extremely charming cast and usually good direction.
Hope the final installment is a gem.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far way there was...Club Timobi Wan
I too am hoping that this will be a step up from Dead Man's Chest.
I know that I'm probably in the minority, but I truly hated that film. The first one remains one of the most fun films I've seen in a while though, so I'm really hoping that I'll like the next one.
DMC was a huge disappointment. There were some entertaining bits - the fight on the wheel, for example, but I didn't like any of Davy Jones' crew, or anything of the kraken but the first ship take-down. (Correction, I did like the two ex-pirates arguing about the pronunciation of the word...)
Tim, Matt, Leo, mostly agree. Although I did not hate DMC, it certainly was not up to par with COTBP. Just didn't have the same fun feeling throughout. And Barbosa was a much more interesting villian than Davy Jones & his crew. Since he will be back in AWE, along with Chow-Yun Fat, hopefully this will be recapture all the fun of Black Pearl.
An extremely charming cast and usually good direction. 
