Executives at Walt Disney Studios drafted a rough treatment for the film in 2000. A script was developed by Jay Wolpert in 2001, and was rewritten by Stuart Beattie in early 2002. Around that time, the producer Jerry Bruckheimer became involved in the project. He brought in screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who had drafted a premise for the film in the 1990s. Elliott and Rossio added the curse to the script to align the film's story with the theme park ride.[8] Verbinski eventually signed on as the director. Filming took place from October 2002 to March 2003 in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and on sets in Los Angeles, California.
Reconstruction of a coin (medalion) from Pirates of the Caribbean
In the early 18th century, Governor Weatherby Swann and his daughter, Elizabeth, sail aboard HMS Dauntless captained by Lieutenant Norrington and his crew. They encounter a shipwreck and rescue a boy named Will Turner. Elizabeth notices a gold medallion around Will's neck and takes it while he is unconscious, before seeing a ghostly ship sailing away. Eight years later in Port Royal, Jamaica, Captain Norrington is being promoted to commodore while Will works as a blacksmith, and pirate captain Jack Sparrow arrives in Port Royal on a sinking boat seeking a ship. Norrington proposes to Elizabeth atop a cliff, but due to her tight-fitting corset, she faints and falls into the ocean, causing the medallion she is carrying to emit a pulse. Jack rescues Elizabeth from certain death and discovers the medallion she was wearing. After being identified as a wanted fugitive, Governor Swann demanded his execution despite Elizabeth's protest, yet Sparrow, using Elizabeth as leverage, escaped from Norrington's men. He then reached the smithy to break his binds, but is caught in a duel with Will and apprehended.
That night, Port Royal is attacked by the pirate crew of the Black Pearl, who are in search of the medallion. They take Elizabeth hostage aboard the ship to meet Captain Barbossa, who explains that the medallion is one of 882 cursed gold pieces used to bribe Hernán Cortés to stop his slaughter of the Aztecs. After finding and stealing the cursed gold at Isla de Muerta, the crew became cursed undead zombies who cannot feel pleasure or pain. To lift the curse, the crew has returned all the gold with an offering of blood from each member, but one medallion belonging to "Bootstrap Bill Turner", a crew member lost to the sea, is missing. Not wanting to reveal her identity as the Governor's daughter and knowing the medallion belonged to Will, Elizabeth lies that her last name is Turner. Believing Elizabeth to be Bootstrap's child, Barbossa intends to use her blood for the ritual.
Will frees Jack, and they fake a theft of the Dauntless in order to steal the smaller and faster HMS Interceptor. They escape to Tortuga to recruit a crew from Joshamee Gibbs, who reveals Jack's past as captain of the Black Pearl and victim to the crew's mutiny, marooning him on a deserted island. On Isla de Muerta, they sneak into the treasure grotto where Barbossa fails to lift the curse using Elizabeth's blood. Will and Elizabeth escape with a medallion, but Jack is captured and imprisoned on the Pearl. A battle erupts between the ships, and Will surrenders when he learns that Bootstrap was his father, with the stipulation that Elizabeth and the crew are not harmed. Barbossa imprisons the crew of the Interceptor while sinking their ship and maroons Jack and Elizabeth on the same island they once exiled Jack to. Jack reveals that the island was used as a rum smuggling cache for rum runners and spent 3 days drinking the rum stored there. Elizabeth signals for help by creating a large bonfire using all the rum, leading the Royal Navy to rescue them. She agrees to marry Norrington if he saves Will from Barbossa.
Jack and Norrington plan to ambush the pirates at Isla de Muerta, but Jack then reveals himself and convinces Barbossa to delay lifting the curse until after defeating Norrington's men. In the battle, Jack hides a medallion for temporary immortality, frees Will, and duels Barbossa. Elizabeth frees Jack's crew on the Pearl, but they refuse to help her save Will and Jack as they honor the pirate code. Jack shoots Barbossa just as Will returns the last medallion with his blood, breaking the curse. Now mortal, Barbossa dies from Jack's gunshot, while the rest of his crew are either killed or captured by the Navy.
At Port Royal, Will declares his love for Elizabeth, before rescuing Jack from a hanging. After a scuffle, Jack and Will are surrounded by Norrington's soldiers. Elizabeth stands between them, and Jack falls into the sea to be rescued by the crew of the Black Pearl, who have returned for him. Norrington comes to terms with the fact that Elizabeth loves Will, and gives Jack a day's head start before pursuing him. Governor Swann gives his blessing to Will and Elizabeth, while Jack becomes captain of the Pearl once again and sails off toward the horizon.
In a post-credits scene, Jack, the monkey, climbs onto the chest of gold in the cave on Isla de Muerta and takes a coin from it, becoming undead, once more.
Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow: A notorious pirate characterized by his slightly drunken swagger, slurred speech and flailing hand gestures. He is determined to reacquire the Black Pearl.
Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbossa: The captain of the Black Pearl. He was Jack's first mate before he led a mutiny. Barbossa and his crew stole cursed Aztec gold and became immortal zombies.
Orlando Bloom as Will Turner: A blacksmith's apprentice working in Port Royal who is in love with Elizabeth Swann. Will struggles with the fact that his father was a pirate.
Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann: The daughter of Governor Weatherby Swann. She has been fascinated with pirates since childhood and is in love with Will.
Zoe Saldaña as Anamaria: A pirate who wants to confront Jack for stealing her ship. One of the film's screenwriters, Terry Rossio, stated that the name "AnaMaria" was chosen because it is the middle name of his daughter.[9][10]
In 2001, Jay Wolpert wrote a script based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was based on a story created by the Walt Disney Studios executives Brigham Taylor, Michael Haynes and Josh Harmon. This story featured Will Turner as a prison guard who releases Jack Sparrow to rescue Elizabeth Swann, who is being held for ransom by Captain Blackheart.[8] By March 2002, Disney brought Stuart Beattie in to rewrite the script because of his knowledge of piracy.[4] Beattie stated that he talked about making a pirate film based on the ride while tossing a Frisbee with a friend and wrote a first draft titled "Quest for the Caribbean" while on exchange to Oregon State University in 1991.[11][12][13]
Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio notably thought about a pirate film based on the ride during the early 1990s, having pitched the idea after completing work on the 1992 film Aladdin as a premise to studio executives who were not interested at the time.[14] Undeterred, the writing team refused to give up the dream, waiting for a studio to pick up their take on a pirate tale.[15] Having worked with Disney on Aladdin and the 2002 film Treasure Planet, among other successful films, Elliott and Rossio were also brought in for Pirates of the Caribbean to give it a "more supernatural spin".[4] Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were the final writers to receive screenplay credit, while all four writers received story credits.
When Dick Cook managed to convince producer Jerry Bruckheimer to join the project,[16] he rejected Jay Wolpert's script because it was "a straight pirate movie".[17] Later in March 2002, Bruckheimer brought Elliott and Rossio,[17] who suggested making a supernatural curse—as described in the opening narration of the ride—the film's plot.[18]
Disney was unsure whether to release the film in theaters or direct-to-video. The studio was interested in Matthew McConaughey as Sparrow because of his resemblance to Burt Lancaster, who had inspired that script's interpretation of the character. If they chose to release it direct-to-video, Christopher Walken or Cary Elwes would have been their first choice.[16]
In May 2002, Gore Verbinski signed on to direct Pirates of the Caribbean.[4] He was attracted to the idea of using modern technology to resurrect a genre that had disappeared after the Golden Age of Hollywood. He recalled his childhood memories of the ride, feeling the film was an opportunity to pay tribute to the "scary and funny" tone of it.[19]
Although Cook had been a strong proponent of adapting Disney's rides into films, the box-office failure of The Country Bears (2002) made Michael Eisner attempt to shut down production of Pirates of the Caribbean. However, Verbinski told his concept artists to keep working on the picture, and when Eisner came to visit, Eisner was astonished by what had been created.[20][21]
As recalled in the book DisneyWar, Eisner asked "Why does it have to cost so much?". Bruckheimer replied, "Your competition is spending $150 million," referring to franchises like The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix. Eisner concurred, but with the stigma attached to theme-park adaptations, Eisner requested Verbinski and Bruckheimer remove some of the more overt references to the ride in the Pirates of the Caribbean script, such as a scene where Sparrow and Turner enter a cave via a waterfall. Another change made, was adding The Curse of the Black Pearl as a subtitle, should the film be a hit and lend itself to sequels like Raiders of the Lost Ark. This brought protest, due to the Black Pearl being the name of the ship and nothing to do with the pirates' curse. Although Verbinski thought the subtitle was nonsense, Eisner refused to back down and The Curse of the Black Pearl remained the subtitle, although on most posters and trailers the words were so small as to be barely visible.[20][21]
Influence of the Monkey Island series of games
Ted Elliott was allegedly writing a George Lucas-produced animated film adaptation of The Curse of Monkey Island, which was cancelled before its official announcement, three years prior to the release of Pirates of the Caribbean. This film was allegedly in production at Industrial Light and Magic before being cancelled.[22]Ron Gilbert, the creator of the Monkey Island series, has jokingly expressed a bitterness towards Pirates of the Caribbean films, specifically the second film, for its similarities to his game.[23]
Gilbert has stated that Tim Powers' 1987 novel On Stranger Tides, which was adapted into the fourth Pirates film, was the principal source of inspiration for his video games.[24]Pirates screenwriter Terry Rossio mentioned how Disney was hit with at least six plagiarism lawsuits for the first Pirates of the Caribbean film for supposedly stealing elements of the Monkey Island video game and the On Stranger Tides novel, despite there being a ride at Disneyland and also a first draft screenplay by other writers.[25]
Casting
Stuart Beattie, who drafted early versions of the film's script, said he created the character Jack Sparrow with Hugh Jackman in mind to play the part. However, since Jackman was not well-known outside of his native Australia, the more-famousJohnny Depp was cast instead.[26] Depp found the script quirky: rather than seeking treasure, the crew of the Black Pearl were trying to return it; also, the traditional mutiny had already taken place.[27] Initially Sparrow was, according to Bruckheimer, "a young Burt Lancaster, just the cocky pirate." Jim Carrey was considered for the part, but the production schedule for Pirates of the Caribbean conflicted with Bruce Almighty. Other actors considered for the role include Michael Keaton and Christopher Walken. Eventually, Depp was cast, as Bruckheimer felt he could give the character the edge.[28]
Johnny Depp in 2009
At the first read-through, Depp surprised the rest of the cast and crew by portraying the character in an off-kilter manner.[29] After researching 18th-century pirates, Depp compared them to modern rock stars and decided to base his performance on Keith Richards.[30] Although Verbinski and Bruckheimer had confidence in Depp, partly because it would be Bloom who was playing the traditional Errol Flynn type,[27] Disney executives were confused, asking Depp whether the character was drunk or gay, and Michael Eisner at one point proclaimed, "He's ruining the film!"[29] Even Bruckheimer was slightly uncomfortable with Depp's decision to cap his teeth with gold. Depp later recalled, "I said, 'Look, these are the choices I made. You know my work. So either trust me or give me the boot.' And luckily, they didn't."[30]
Verbinski approached Geoffrey Rush for the role of Hector Barbossa, as he knew he would not play it with attempts at complexity, but with a simple villainy that would suit the story's tone.[27] Contrarily, Rush felt that he was playing the unsung hero of the film, who only dreamed about lifting the curse and living as a rich rogue with his prized pirate bride and developed an intricate backstory for the character to play him more convincingly.[31] Originally, Rush was the second choice for the role behind Robert De Niro, who turned it down because he expected the film to flop in a similar manner to previous pirate films;[32] he regretted this decision later and accepted the role of Captain Shakespeare in the movie Stardust.[33] Barbossa was conceptualized as a villain, a "dark trickster", and an evil counterpart to Sparrow.[34] Depp created the name "Hector Barbossa" on set, but the name was never revealed onscreen.[27]
Verbinski did not want an entirely romanticized feel to the film, but rather a sense of historical fantasy. Most of the actors wore prosthetics and contact lenses. Depp had contacts that acted as sunglasses, while Rush and Lee Arenberg wore dulled contacts that gave a sinister feel to the characters. Mackenzie Crook wore two contacts to represent his character's wooden eye: a soft version, and a harder version for when it protrudes. Their teeth and scurvy skin were dyed on.[39] Depp carried a genuine pistol, which was made in London in 1760.[39] A number of swords were built for the production by the blacksmith Tony Swatton.[40]
The crew spent five months creating the cavern in which Barbossa and the Black Pearl crew attempt to reverse their curse, filling it with five feet of water, 882 gold coins, and applying gold paint to the styrofoam rocks for more impressions of treasure.[14] The Port Royal fortress was built in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Governor Swann's mansion was built at Manhattan Beach.[39] A fire broke out in September 2002, causing $525,000 worth of damage, though no one was injured.[41]
The filmmakers chose St. Vincent as their primary shooting location, as it contained the quietest beach they could find. They built three piers and a backlot for Port Royal and Tortuga.[39] Of most importance to the film were the three ships: Black Pearl, Dauntless, and Interceptor. For budget reasons, the ships were built on docks, with only six days spent in the open sea for the battle between Black Pearl and Interceptor.[42]Dauntless and Black Pearl were built on barges, with computer-generated imagery finishing the structures. Black Pearl was also built on the Spruce Goose stage, to control fog and lighting.[39]Interceptor was a re-dressed Lady Washington, a full-scale replica sailing ship from Aberdeen, Washington, fully repainted before going on a 40-day voyage beginning December 2, 2002, arriving on location on January 12, 2003.[43] A miniature was built for the storm sequence.[39]
Principal photography began on October 9, 2002, and wrapped on March 7, 2003.[4] The quick shoot was only marred by two accidents: as Sparrow steals Interceptor, three of the ropes attaching it to Dauntless did not break at first, and when they did snap, debris hit Depp's knee. He was not injured, and the way the incident played out on film made it look like Sparrow merely ducks. A more humorous accident was when the boat Sparrow was supposed to arrive in at Port Royal, sank.[19] In October, the crew was shooting scenes at Rancho Palos Verdes. In December they were shooting at Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and in January they were at the cavern set at Los Angeles.[44] The script often changed with Elliott and Rossio on set, with additions such as Gibbs (Kevin McNally) telling Will how Sparrow allegedly escaped from an island—strapping two turtles together with rope made of his back hair—and Pryce was written into the climactic battle to keep some empathy for the audience.[19]
Because of the quick schedule of the shoot, Industrial Light & Magic immediately began visual effects work. While the skeletal forms of the pirates revealed by moonlight take up relatively little screen-time, the crew knew their computer-generated forms had to convey the performances of the actors, or else the transition would not work. Each scene featuring them was shot twice: a reference plate with the actors, and then without them to add in the skeletons,[14] an aesthetic complicated by Verbinski's decision to shoot the battles with handheld cameras.[19] The actors had to perform their scenes again on the motion-capture stage.[39] Filming was completed a mere four months before release, which caused Verbinski to spend 18-hour days in the editing room.[19] There were 600 visual effects shots, 250 of which involved merely removing modern sailboats from the shot.[45]
The musical score was composed by Klaus Badelt, conducted by Blake Neely and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony.[46]Hans Zimmer served as the music producer. Seven other composers, including Geoff Zanelli and Ramin Djawadi, received credit for "additional music". Verbinski oversaw the score with Badelt and Zimmer, who headed 15 composers to finish it quickly.[19]
Composer Alan Silvestri, who had collaborated with Verbinski on Mouse Hunt and The Mexican, was originally hired to write the film's score. Citing creative differences with Bruckheimer, Silvestri left the project before recording any material.[47] Verbinski and Bruckheimer decided to go with Zimmer's team instead, who were frequent collaborators on their productions. Zimmer declined to do the bulk of the composing, as he was busy scoring The Last Samurai. As a result, he referred Verbinski to Klaus Badelt,[48] a relatively new composer who had been a part of Remote Control Productions, known as Media Ventures at the time, for three years. At that point, Badelt had only composed a few films, including The Time Machine, The Recruit, K-19: The Widowmaker and Basic.[49] As for Zimmer however, he ended up collaborating with Badelt to write most of the score's primary themes. Zimmer said he wrote most of the music in the space of one night, and then recorded them in an all-synthesized demo credited to him. This demo presents three of the score's themes and motifs, concluding with an early version of "He's A Pirate" which differs from the final cue and includes a development of a melody Zimmer wrote for the score to Drop Zone.[9]
The song Elizabeth Swann sings in the opening of the film as a child, and then later on the island marooned with Jack Sparrow, is called "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)'". It was written by George Bruns with lyrics by Xavier "X" Atencio. It is the song heard throughout the attraction Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland and Magic Kingdom.[50]
Marketing
On August 22, 2002, IGN FilmForce reportedly previewed Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean after corresponding with an anonymous source prior to the film's shooting in October.[3] The first teaser poster and trailer for film, at the time only titled Pirates of the Caribbean, in which only one second of actual footage of the film was used, was attached to The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers as well as Disney's official website on December 17, 2002. By March 2003, sensing the possibility of sequels, Disney added the subtitle of "The Curse of the Black Pearl" to the film. On April 6, 2003, the full trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the first to feature footage from the film, was shown on every TV station Disney owned as well as being available to watch online, with some videos featuring an introduction by Orlando Bloom.[4]
Release
Rating
Pirates of the Caribbean was the first film released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner to be rated PG-13 by the MPAA, for action/adventure violence. One executive noted that she found the film too intense for her five-year-old child.[17] Nonetheless, the studio was confident enough to add The Curse of the Black Pearl subtitle to the film in case sequels were made,[4] and to attract older children. Verbinski disliked the new title because it is the Aztec gold rather than the ship that is cursed, so he requested the title to be unreadable on the poster.[21]
Home media
The DVD and VHS editions of the film were released December 1, 2003, in the United Kingdom and December 2, 2003, in the United States,[51] with 11 million copies sold in the first week, a record for live action video.[52] It earned $235million from DVD sales as of January 2004.[53] This THX certified DVD release featured two discs, featuring three commentary tracks (Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski; Jerry Bruckheimer, Keira Knightley and Jack Davenport; and the screenwriter team), various deleted scenes and documentaries, and a 1968 Disneyland episode about the theme park ride.[54][51] A special three-disc edition was released in November 2004, in the United States and April 2005, in the United Kingdom.[55]
A PSP release of the film followed on April 19, 2005.[56] The high-definition Blu-ray Disc version of the film was released in May 2007.[57] This movie was among the first to be sold at the iTunes music store. The Curse of the Black Pearl had its UK television premiere on Christmas Eve 2007 on BBC One at 20:30[58] and was watched by an estimated 7 million viewers.[59]
In January 2022, The Curse of the Black Pearl was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray. However, the film's remaster was criticized by various online reviewers for being upscaled from 2K resolution, excessive application of digital noise reduction and various other shortcomings.[60][61] A review by Martin Liebman of Blu-ray.com compared the release unfavorably to the previous 2007 Blu-ray release, stating: "The picture's grain has been reduced to a meshy, artificial appearance, looking frozen and flat and certainly less than genuine and flattering. Edge enhancement is in evidence. Textures have been scrubbed down and sharpened back up. Details appear waxy and lacking complexity [...] This is just a real clunker of a UHD image and one of the least impressive the format has seen."[62]
2023 re-release
As part of Disney's 100th anniversary, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was re-released in theaters from July 7 to 20, 2023, on the film's own 20th anniversary.[63][64]
Reception
Box office
Before its release, many journalists expected Pirates of the Caribbean would be a box-office bomb. The pirate genre had not been successful for many years, with Cutthroat Island (1995) being a notable failure. Depp was known mostly for starring in cult films, but Pirates of the Caribbean has been cited as launching his career as a leading man.[65]
The film opened at number one ahead of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, grossing $46,630,690 in its opening weekend and $70,625,971 since its Wednesday launch.[66] This made it Disney's highest July opening weekend, a record held until the debut of The Village a year later.[67] It would also outgross another pirate-themed film, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, while staying ahead of the summer's top earner, Disney's own Finding Nemo.[68] Additionally, the film would hold the record for having the highest opening weekend for a Johnny Depp film until 2005 when Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory surpassed it.[69] The film was overtaken by Bad Boys II during its second weekend, but still made $34million.[70]Pirates of the Caribbean eventually made its way to $654,264,015 worldwide ($305,413,918 domestically and $348,850,097 overseas), becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2003,[2] as well as joining Finding Nemo, Bruce Almighty, X2, and The Matrix Reloaded as one of the first five films to pass the $200million mark in one summer season.[71][2]Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 50.64million tickets in the US.[72]
Internationally, Pirates of the Caribbean dominated for seven consecutive weekends at the box office,[73] tying the record of Men in Black II at the time.[74] Only three movies after that broke the record; its sequel, Dead Man's Chest, (with nine consecutive No. 1 weekends and ten in total),[75]Avatar (with 11 consecutive No. 1 weekends)[76] and The Smurfs (with eight consecutive No. 1 weekends).[77] As of February 2021, it is the 141st-highest-grossing film of all time.[78]
Critical response
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 79% based on 216 reviews, and an average rating of 7.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "May leave you exhausted like the theme park ride that inspired it; however, you'll have a good time when it's over."[79] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews, the film received an average score of 63 out of 100, based on reviews from 40 critics indicating generally favorable reviews.[80] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[81]
Alan Morrison of Empire felt it was "the best blockbuster of the summer", acclaiming all the comic performances despite his disappointment with the swashbuckling sequences.[82] Duane Dudek of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earned a three-out-of-four rating, describing the film as "a fast-moving, wickedly funny and vividly mounted distraction that brings to mind adventure romps like The Mummy, The Princess Bride and The Mask of Zorro, with Antonio Banderas."[83]
The performance of Depp as Sparrow was particularly praised. Review site PopMatters applauded Depp's performance, saying "Ingenious and mesmerizing, Johnny Depp embodies the film's essential fantasy, that a pirate's life is exciting and unfettered." James Berardinelli of ReelViews also applauds Depp's performance by saying "Pirates of the Caribbean belongs to Johnny Depp...Take away Depp, and you're left with a derivative and dull motion picture."[84]
Roger Ebert acclaimed the performances of Depp and Rush, and particularly that "It can be said that [Depp's] performance is original in its every atom. There has never been a pirate, or for that matter a human being, like this in any other movie... his behavior shows a lifetime of rehearsal." However, he felt the film went on for too long,[85] a criticism shared by Kenneth Turan's negative review, feeling it "spends far too much time on its huge supporting cast of pirates (nowhere near as entertaining as everyone assumes) and on bloated adventure set pieces", despite having also enjoyed Depp's performance.[86]Mark Kermode described the film as "a triumph of turgid theme-park hackery over the art of cinema".[87]
In 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," finishing at number 188.[88]
Following the critical and commercial success of The Curse of the Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean became a multimedia franchise encompassing films, books, video games, and theme park attractions. While The Curse of the Black Pearl was conceived as a standalone film, its writers Elliott and Rossio turned it into the first of a trilogy, in which two back-to-back sequels were released: Dead Man's Chest in 2006 and At World's End in 2007.[92] Depp, Bloom, Knightley, Rush, and McNally returned for both films. A short film created as a prequel to The Curse of the Black Pearl, titled Tales of the Code: Wedlocked, was directed by James Ward Byrkit, who was a creative consultant for Gore Verbinski in the Pirates trilogy.[93]
A fourth film, On Stranger Tides, was released in 2011. Following the release of The Curse of the Black Pearl, Disney approached author Tim Powers about optioning his novel On Stranger Tides for a Pirates film, a decision which was finalized near the end of filming the first two sequels.[94][95] With the stories of both Will and Elizabeth resolved, and both Bloom and Knightley declining involvement in a fourth film, a stand-alone sequel was developed focusing on the further adventures of Sparrow.[96] Depp, Rush, McNally, Greg Ellis, and Damian O'Hare reprised their roles from the previous films.[97]
The fifth film, Dead Men Tell No Tales, was also developed as a standalone sequel and was released in 2017. Rossio was contracted to write the screenplay in 2011, but his script was rejected by 2012.[98][99] The screenwriter Jeff Nathanson was hired, along with the directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, who were quoted as being inspired by The Curse of the Black Pearl.[100] Depp, Rush, McNally, Martin Klebba, Giles New and Angus Barnett returned to their roles from previous films.[101] Despite the studio and producer guideline that Knightley and Bloom would not return,[99] as well as the actors' past comments about not wanting to return, they made cameo appearances as their respective characters.[99][102] An untitled sixth film is currently in development, with Jerry Bruckheimer returning as a producer.[103]
Footnotes
↑ Originally titled and marketed as Pirates of the Caribbean[3][4]
↑ Shaffer, Joshua C (July 17, 2017). Discovering the Magic Kingdom: An Unofficial Disneyland Vacation Guide – Second Edition. Synergy Book Publishing. p.511. ISBN978-0-9991664-0-6.
↑ Kermode, Mark (July 9, 2006). "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest". The Guardian. Retrieved August 2, 2021. Given my contempt for the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, a triumph of turgid theme-park hackery over the art of cinema
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