Development First film Back in the early 1990s, Michael Frost Beckner and James Gorman pitched the script that would become
Cutthroat Island to
Michael Eisner as a potential
Pirates of the Caribbean film, buoyed by support from development staff at Disney. Eisner turned it down, due to not wanting to mix the company's film and theme park divisions. Almost a decade later,
Walt Disney Pictures had
Jay Wolpert write a script based on the
Pirates of the Caribbean ride in 2001, which was based on a story created by Disney executives
Brigham Taylor, Michael Haynes, and Josh Harmon.
Stuart Beattie stated that he talked about making a pirate movie 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. Screenwriters
Ted Elliott and
Terry Rossio notably thought about the pirate genre 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, but there was no interest from any studio. Undeterred, the writing team refused to give up the dream, waiting for a studio to pick up their take on a pirate tale. Producer
Jerry Bruckheimer rejected Wolpert's script, feeling it was "a straight pirate movie". In March 2002, Disney brought Beattie in to rewrite the script, due to his knowledge of
piracy. Later that month Elliott and Rossio were brought in, having worked with Disney in
Aladdin and the 2002 film
Treasure Planet, among other successful films. In June 2002,
Gore Verbinski signed on to direct
Pirates of the Caribbean, and
Johnny Depp and
Geoffrey Rush signed on the following month to star.
Orlando Bloom read the script after Rush, with whom he was working on
Ned Kelly, suggested it to him, and was cast as
Will Turner.
Keira Knightley came as a surprise to Verbinski: he had not seen her performance in
Bend It Like Beckham and was impressed by her audition for
Elizabeth Swann. While
Dick 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 and
Robert Iger attempt to shut down production of
Pirates of the Caribbean. Although Bruckheimer was Disney's most reliable and successful producer, Eisner second-guessed the early footage, complaining about Depp's character, and as the budget rose, threatened to cancel the film. However, Verbinski told his concept artists to keep working, and Bruckheimer changed the executives' minds when he showed them concept art and
animatics. 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 that Verbinski and Bruckheimer remove some of the more overt references to the ride in the script, such as a scene where Sparrow and Turner enter the 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, which 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, though on most posters and trailers the words were so small as to be barely visible. Shooting for
The Curse of the Black Pearl began on October 9, 2002, and wrapped by March 7, 2003. However,
The Curse of the Black Pearl became both a critical and commercial success.
Second and third films After seeing how well the first film was made, the cast and crew signed for two sequels to be shot back-to-back, a practical decision on Disney's part to allow more time with the same cast and crew. Writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio knew that with an ensemble cast, they weren't free to invent totally different situations and characters, as with the
Indiana Jones and
James Bond series, and so had to retroactively turn
The Curse of the Black Pearl into the first of a
trilogy. They wanted to explore the reality of what would happen after Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann's embrace at the end of the first film, and initially considered the
Fountain of Youth as the plot device. They settled on introducing the
Flying Dutchman, the
Kraken, and
Davy Jones's locker, a mythology mentioned twice in the first film. Also only mentioned in the first film, a fictionalized
East India Trading Company was introduced as the primary antagonists, which for them represented a counterpoint to the personal freedom represented by pirates, which was represented by a fictionalized
Brethren of the Coast. Each of the cast of characters reprise their roles in the
Pirates sequels, respectively, and saw the additions of
Tom Hollander as
Lord Cutler Beckett,
Stellan Skarsgård as
Bootstrap Bill Turner,
Naomie Harris as
Tia Dalma, and
Bill Nighy as
Davy Jones. Further additions include
Chow Yun-Fat as
Sao Feng and Keith Richards as Jack Sparrow's father,
Captain Teague. Both Knightley and Orlando Bloom had repeatedly been quoted in saying they were done with
Pirates, noting that there was closure for Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann in ''At World's End
, was quoted in saying they wanted to move on from the franchise. Whereas Johnny Depp was more interested in returning as Captain Jack Sparrow, having been quoted that it was a "break, or a hiatus" as he wrapped his last day on set. with Dead Man's Chest finishing on March 1, 2006, and At World's End'' on January 10, 2007. The second film was the first Disney theatrical feature film with the computer-generated
Walt Disney Pictures logo.
Fourth film With the stories of both Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) resolved in ''At World's End'', Elliott and Rossio decided to do a
stand-alone sequel, with a story that would support new characters, and incorporate elements from the novel, such as
Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, the Fountain of Youth and mermaids—the latter two having been already alluded to in the previous films. and the cast saw the additions of
Ian McShane as Blackbeard and
Penélope Cruz as
Angelica, Jack Sparrow's love interest and Blackbeard's daughter. Further additions include
Sam Claflin as the
missionary Philip Swift,
Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey as the mermaid
Syrena,
Stephen Graham as
Scrum,
Richard Griffiths as
King George II, and
Óscar Jaenada as
The Spaniard. which led to cheaper locations and fewer scenes with special effects. It was also filmed in
3D, with cameras similar to the ones used in
Avatar.
Fifth film In January 2011, Terry Rossio was confirmed to write the screenplay for the fifth installment, but without his co-writer Ted Elliott. Rossio's script was ultimately discarded, and the writer stated that a major reason was its use of a female villain, which made actor Johnny Depp "worried that would be redundant to
Dark Shadows, which also featured a female villain." Following the film's theatrical release in 2017, Rossio released his unproduced screenplay on his website
Wordplay, which includes the proposed story and additional information in extensive footnotes. In January 2013, Disney hired
Jeff Nathanson to write the script for the film. Nathanson's script featured the
Trident of Poseidon, By August 2013, Rønning and Sandberg confirmed their involvement, and praised Nathanson's "funny and touching" script, also being inspired by the
first film of the franchise. The directing duo also confirmed that the title of the fifth film would be
Dead Men Tell No Tales, alluding to the line well known from the theme-park attraction, and that it would be both a stand-alone adventure and tie into the overall mythology of the series. Disney pushed back the originally announced 2015 release date to a Summer 2016 release. Script issues were reportedly behind the delay, as both the studio and filmmakers were reportedly not happy with Nathanson's initial draft, but Bruckheimer revealed Nathanson was at work on a second attempt based on the well-received outline. Depp, Rush, McNally, Stephen Graham, Martin Klebba, Giles New and Angus Barnett returned to their roles from previous films, and the cast saw the additions of
Javier Bardem as the
Spanish Navy Captain
Armando Salazar,
Brenton Thwaites as
Henry Turner, and
Kaya Scodelario as
Carina Smyth. Further additions include
Golshifteh Farahani as the
sea witch Shansa,
David Wenham as
Royal Navy Lieutenant
John Scarfield, and a cameo role by
The Beatles musician
Paul McCartney as Jack Sparrow's namesake, Uncle Jack. Despite the studio and producer guideline that Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom would not return, The film was shot in Australia after the government agreed to repurpose $20 million of
tax incentives originally intended for the remake of
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Village Roadshow Studios and
Port Douglas were used as filming locations. Production began in Australia on February 17, 2015, and wrapped on July 9. Although the scheduled theatrical release was on July 7, 2017, among other previously announced and subsequently delayed released dates, The film was also given an alternative title, ''Salazar's Revenge'', for marketing purposes in selected European, South American, and Asian countries. == Reception ==