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The Inevitable Downfall Of Pirates Of The Caribbean
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Mar 31, 2025
When Disney first announced it would be taking the famous Disneyland ride Pirates and adapting it into the major motion picture Pirates of the Caribbean, many fans had doubts the House of Mouse could pull it off. But when Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl first debuted, it was instantly a classic. But as time went on, it seemed Disney was draining every ounce of prestige from the Pirates franchise. Eventually leading to a dramatic downfall of the Pirates of the Caribbean series.
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When you marooned me on that godforsaken spit of land, you forgot one very important thing, mate
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I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Pirates of the Caribbean did what no one thought was possible
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It made a great movie out of a classic Disneyland ride. And then it spawned four progressively worse sequels
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All the CGI squid men and drunk pirates singing yo-ho, yo-ho just couldn't stop what now feels so inevitable
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You are without doubt the worst pirate I've ever heard of. But you have heard of me
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The iconic live-action film franchise was originally being developed by Disney as far back as the 1990s
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And for almost all of its time in development, two men were attached as central creative figures
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Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. But as the project moved closer to getting a green light
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Disney execs weren't sure if they wanted to position the film as a big-budget theatrical experience
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or aim it as a kid-centric direct-to-VHS film. It was in May of 2002 that Gore Verbinski was brought on board by mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer
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thus making the big-budget epic the clear path forward. Verbinski's vision was that this project was simultaneously a throwback to films like Captain Blood and Treasure Island
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and filled with whimsical magic and all-ages appropriate horror. They took Pirates, a slow-moving air-conditioned boat ride
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and made it a swashbuckling action-adventure movie with heart, iconic visuals, and lovable characters
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The cast of the film was also perfectly positioned to break out in a major way
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Johnny Depp being moved up from successful indie film leading man to Hollywood megastar
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Will Turner, as played by Orlando Bloom, hot off his turn as Legolas
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And Keira Knightley having just had her first critical hit with Bend It Like Beckham
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Got high hopes for her. Especially me Curse of the Black Pearl opened at number one in the box office The scale in inventive visuals coupled with Oscar performance of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow pulled in legions of viewers
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The film generated over $650 million worldwide. In some ways, the film was received as an underdog
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The end product was exactly the opposite of what everyone expected. A movie based on a ride
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In a genre that was rarely successful? Many believed that the film would go the way of Cutthroat Island
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one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. And yet, it didn't
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It was thrilling and personal and had a scope that was unimaginable. Which leads us into the first true mistake the franchise makes
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Instead of drilling down and making a really good sequel that would expand the world of the first film
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they opted to follow the trend of the day. They chose to mimic Lord of the Rings and The Matrix
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and shoot two sequels back to back. Unfortunately, they didn't quite have the creative energy they needed to pull off this trick
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So Dead Man's Chest, released in 2006, and At World's End, released in 2007
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both feel undercooked and not as tightly constructed. The problem with both of these sequels is that Curse of the Black Pearl
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from a writing perspective, is a near-perfect movie. All the characters have arcs that are set up, paid off, and don't really need more screen time
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These two sequels spend valuable time undoing the closed loops from the first film
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and this is especially apparent in how Jack Sparrow's character is utilized in the sequels
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In the original film, he's a supporting character. He's there to drive action and create conflict, but he's not the protagonist
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As the franchise goes on, the writers and directors give him more and more to do
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which offsets the structure of how these films function. You need a Will Turner straight man, for lack of a better term, to balance out Sparrow's antics
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But that idea just gets exponentially diminished as the films go on However the slight dip in quality of Dead Man Chest didn matter because the film brought in billion And the third film It brought in million
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You know I demand payments. I brought payments. Pirates was now a cultural force
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Disney had their answer to The Lord of the Rings. So where would the franchise go from here
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They'd go back into the past. Thematically, that is. Elliot and Rossio's initial version from the 1990s
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was heavily inspired by the Lucasfilm game The Secret of Monkey Island
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which was in turn heavily inspired by the Tim Powers novel On Stranger Tides
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Jerry Bruckheimer optioned the book, and on September 11th, 2009, Walt Disney Pictures announced that the title of the new film
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would be Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides. Rumors instantly popped up that Jack Sparrow
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would replace Jack Shandy as the novel's protagonist. Directed by Rob Marshall
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Helmer of the movie musical Chicago, the idea of expanding the franchise
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by pulling in a novel as source material seems like a great idea
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However, it just didn't work. While Elliot and Rossio did return for the film
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without Verbinski, the film feels shallow. The visual style is just wrong
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It's a pale imitation. The writing even seems off. Just recycled character bits for the existing characters
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and extremely flat motivations for the new ones. The only real standout from the new cast is Ian McShane as Blackbeard
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You know a movie isn't well thought out when Geoffrey Rush is underserved
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and it takes you a solid 30 seconds to remember that Penelope Cruz is even in the film
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This is nonsense! I'm going! Despite lackluster reviews and everyone stating that they're tired of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow
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the film was extremely financially successful. It grossed $1.046 billion. dollars So Disney said batten down the hatches we doing this again Shortly before the release of On Stranger Tides the wheels were set in motion for a fifth film Rob Marshall opted not to return this time with Yoshim Ronin and Espen Sandberg two visual effects artists
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taking over the director's chair. Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man Tell No Tales
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was positioned as almost a soft reboot of the franchise, attempting to emulate the style and
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structure of the first film. Many critics called the film a requel. We follow a new cast of
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characters, with both Depp and Jeffrey Rush reprising their beloved characters as they must
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go up against a deadly undead deep-sea pirate cursed with immortality named Salazar. Ironically
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this film is what most people expected when The Curse of the Black Pearl was released. It's a
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jumbled mess of overly long action scenes, a bloated cast of underdeveloped characters
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bizarrely choreographed fighting, and amazing actors given either scenery-chewing or strangely wooden performances. And yet, even in this objectively low point of quality, Pirates was
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still successful. It had a global haul of $800 million. So where does that leave the future of
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the Pirates franchise? Inextricably tied to Johnny Depp. At one point, Bruckheimer and Disney were
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developing competing versions of Pirate 6, one to star Johnny Depp and one to not. With his very
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notorious publicity issues and lawsuit, it was up in the air if he would be castable again for a
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major motion picture. The only real certainty is that whatever the Pirates franchise does next
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it needs to be new. They've revisited the same plot lines and core ideas too many times. They
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need new characters, new ideas, and honestly, smaller stakes. The more the franchise focuses
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on the end of the world, the more it just feels like it doesn't matter. The stakes for the first
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film were actually fairly personal. That's the secret to more critically successful Pirates movies, because
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they honestly can't get much worse than Dead Men Tell No Tales
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Could someone explain to me why I don't hear it
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