Following the excitement over actor Johnny Depp‘s win at the recent People’s Choice Award, excitement is now growing over the next installment of the Disney mega-blockbuster, Pirates of the Caribbean.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is scheduled to premiere in 2011. Production will begin later this year but we already know that Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush will be back to revive their characters as Jack Sparrow and Barbossa.

And as the story will pickup where the last installment left off, rumors have already started circulating that the plot will combine elements from Tim Power’s 1988 pirate novel “On Strange Tides.”

Here’s the rumored plot:

The fourth installment film in the series follows the exploits of Captain Jack Sparrow, who travels to the new world after the death of his puppeteer father to confront his uncle, who apparently has made off with the family inheritance. During the voyage, he gets to know a woman named Beth Hurwood and her father, an Oxford professor. Before they arrive, their ship is waylaid by pirates and, with the help of the professor and his assistant, the captain is killed and Sparrow is forced to join the pirate crew. There is, however, a sinister plot being concocted by the professor involving his dead wife, his living daughter and Blackbeard. Blackbeard and vodun magicians whisk everyone away to dreamlike lands where the Fountain of Youth itself awaits. Jack Sparrow must put a stop to these plans and save Beth Hurwood.

(via Mania)