Using the famed Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disney Theme Parks (the last one in which Walt Disney himself had a personal hand in creating) as a springboard, “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” defying some less than enthusiastic anticipation for a “movie based on a ride,” was a smash hit everywhere it played upon opening on July 9th, 2003, amassing a domestic U.S. gross of $305,413,918 million and, including its record-breaking overseas engagements, a worldwide total of $653,913,918.
The film also received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor for Johnny Depp. So successful was the first “Pirates” opus, that the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction was modified by Walt Disney Imagineering at both Disneyland in Anaheim and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida in time for the opening of “Dead Man’s Chest,” so that characters from the films, including Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Barbossa and Davy Jones, were seamlessly inserted in a way that retained what made the original ride such a perennial favorite among Disney theme park visitors… with hopes, of course, that the second film would at least equal the first in popularity.
But not even Bruckheimer, Verbinski, nor The Walt Disney Studios, could have predicted what would happen when the second film in the trilogy, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” opened on July 7th, 2006. The zeitgeist is a mysterious entity, and “Pirates” had obviously plugged directly into its circuit board, as “Dead Man’s Chest” became an instant cultural phenomenon. Upon its opening three-day weekend, the film blew every preceding U.S. box office record apart, amassing an astonishing $135,745,219, surpassing the previous champ, 2002′s “Spider-Man,” by more than $20 million.
“Big Booty for Bruckaneers,” screamed a headline of the Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety in its unique parlance, pointing out that the three-day numbers even beat the standing four-day weekend record…that the Friday totals of $55.5 million set a new mark for the biggest one-day numbers ever… that by Saturday, its $100.2 million take was the biggest ever two-day gross, which meant that “Dead Man’s Chest” was the first movie in history to break the sacred $100 million mark in 48 hours. By this point, the film had taken on major event status, as evidenced by the legion of “Pirates” fans, sweeping across the demographic board, who lined up for hours, many sporting an array of buccaneer gear, some so comprehensively attired from head to toe that it looked as if they stepped right off the set.
By the end of its second weekend, “Dead Man’s Chest” had passed $200 million on its eighth day of release-another record sent crashing to the ground-and amassed $258.2 million in only 10 days, with an additional $125 million in 24 countries outside of the U.S. and Canada. Any lingering doubts about the Pirates’ sea “legs” were laid to rest after the third weekend of “Dead Man’s Chest,” in which the film soared past four major new releases and became the fastest film in history to pass the $300 million mark in the U.S. and Canada (and broke “The Curse of the Black Pearl”’s $305 million milepost).
And overseas, opening in 11 new markets, it was the same story over and over again. Number one everywhere. Long queues from Tokyo to Mumbai to Warsaw, and back again. By September 2006, “Dead Man’s Chest” became only the third member of the billion dollar club and became the third highest grossing film, internationally, in motion picture history. The public had spoken, and very loudly too, across the entire world. The film was also honored with four Academy Award nominations, winning the Best Visual Effects prize for John Knoll, Charles Gibson, Hal Hickel and Allen Hall.
The filmmakers all knew that audiences, although having been thrilled by the first two films, would obviously be seeking the “Astonish me” factor in the third. And they were fully prepared to reward their expectations. “We wanted to tell a story which would be an epic struggle between freedom and conformity,” says executive producer Mike Stenson. “A fundamental question of the movie is, why are we supposed to like pirates? It really does come back to the sense that when you’re growing up, you want to be a pirate… you want to do something that’s about freedom, no rules, not dealing with authority. As we go through our lives, we have to deal with more and more issues of dealing with authority and conformity… but that doesn’t mean that on a Friday night you don’t want to leave the suit and tie behind and spend a couple of hours of experiencing that darker, more swashbuckling and independent version of yourself. Which is what I think elicits people’s passions for these movies.”
“The first movie wasn’t even on the top ten preview list for the summer,” adds executive producer Chad Oman of Jerry Bruckheimer Films. “Then `Dead Man’s Chest’ did double what we hoped, which was pretty amazing. The problem is that after the celebrations came, the realization that we had to really deliver the goods for `At World’s End.’”
“In a way, the most satisfying aspect of `Pirates’ is that it has become this kind of cultural phenomenon that audiences have embraced so passionately,” says executive producer Bruce Hendricks. “You’ve got to give Jerry, Gore, Ted and Terry, and Johnny and the cast credit for that. This has forever changed the approach to the pirate genre, which was basically dead. It’s now been re-invented, whether or not we make more pirate movies, or someone else does, there’s a different way of looking at pirates now.”
Next Page – Chapter 3: Revealing the True Nature of all the Characters
