Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides film provided him a long-awaited opportunity to work with Depp, and that his directing was helped by his experience as a choreographer—"the action sequences felt like big production numbers." On September 11, 2009, at Disney's D23 convention during a Disney event, Cook and Johnny Depp, in full Captain Jack Sparrow costume, announced that a fourth "Pirates" film was in development. The title was announced as "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides". Marshall visited the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland for inspiration, eventually paying homage with a skeleton holding a magnifying glass in Ponce de León's ship. An
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides critic Mark Kermode gave the film an overwhelmingly negative review on his "5 Live" show, saying "it's not as staggeringly misjudged as the third part, because it is just nothing, it is just a big empty nothing, whereas part three I think was an active atrocity, it's just nothing at all". As with the previous films, the plot was criticized as incoherent and confusing. "The Arizona Republic" critic Bill Goodykoontz rated the film two out of five, stating that "the movie is a series of distractions tossed together in the hopes that they will come together in a coherent story.