Paul McCartney in Vancouver early to film role in Pirates of the Caribbean

The fifth instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean has made a major casting addition with Sir Paul McCartney joining the company of Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Geoffrey Rush.

According to Deadline, the legendary 73-year-old, a former member of the The Beatles, has signed on to play an unnamed character in a major extra scene being added to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

The production of this extra scene, which features McCartney, began in Vancouver on March 24 and is scheduled to continue until April 13. There have already been public sightings of both McCartney and Depp, who was seen with his wife Amber Heard dining at Tojo’s Restaurant on Thursday night.

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This is a significant addition to the film, which began production in Australia more than a year ago on a $250 million budget. However, after a number of delays, filming ended in July 2015 with $70 million in overruns, turning the movie into a $320 million production.

And with the extra sequences filmed in Vancouver, the final budget is expected to soar even higher. A schedule published by the Directors Guild of Canada, B.C. indicates that the Vancouver-filmed scene will cost over $20 million (a conservative figure that does not include some costs).

Most, if not all, of the filming is taking place at Seaspan’s shipyards in North Vancouver, within the ‘Block Assembly Shop’ building, a source told Vancity Buzz. The set of the pirate ship has been built inside the 130-metre-long (426-foot-long) assembly facility, where the hulls of vessels are fitted and welded.

Although McCartney’s music has appeared in many films and television shows over the decades, this will be his biggest role yet in cinema.

But this is not the first time that the film’s producers tapped the talent of an English musician for a major acting role. In the third and fourth instalments, released in 2007 and 2011, Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones played Captain Edward Teague – the father of Depp’s character, Captain Jack Sparrow.

McCartney’s role in the filming is expected to end before April 13, when he is scheduled to kick off his three-month-long ‘One On One’ North American and European tour in Fresno, California. He will then perform in Portland and Seattle before returning to Vancouver for back-to-back concerts at Rogers Arena on April 19 and 20.

The last time McCartney performed in Vancouver was in November 2012 inside a packed B.C. Place Stadium.

Walt Disney Studios plans to release the film in theatres on May 26, 2017, which provides the production team with plenty of time to add the new scene to the movie. The fifth instalment is being co-directed by Norwegian newcomers Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg.