PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN

 

PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN

 

Pirates of the Caribbean is a multi-billion dollar Walt Disney franchise encompassing a series of films, a theme park ride, and spinoff novels as well as numerous video games and other publications. The franchise originates with the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, which opened at Disneyland in 1967, the last Disney theme park attraction overseen by Walt Disney. Disney based the ride on ancient Spanish and Portugese sailing legends and folklore. In turn, the first three movies serve as a reiteration of the legends while the fourth is a new rendition with some artistic license. As of August 2006, Pirates of the Caribbean attractions can be found at four Disney theme parks. Their related films have grossed almost US$4 billion as of 2011

 

Pirates of the Caribbean is a series of fantasy-adventure films directed by Gore Verbinski (1–3) and Rob Marshall (4), written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. All four films are based on a Walt Disney theme park ride of the same name, and follow the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), Captain Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Joshamee Gibbs (Kevin McNally), Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), Angelica (Penélope Cruz), Blackbeard (Ian McShane), Philip Swift (Sam Claflin) and the mermaid Syrena (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey).

The films started with their first release on the big screen in 2003 with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. After the success of the first film, Walt Disney Pictures revealed that a trilogy was in the works. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was released three years later in 2006. The sequel proved successful, breaking records worldwide the day of its premiere. In the end, it earned $1,066,179,725 at the worldwide box office, becoming the fourth and fastest film (at the time) to reach this amount. The third film in the series, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, was released in 2007. In September 2008, Depp signed on for a fourth film in the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, released on May 20, 2011 in conventional 2D, Digital 3-D and IMAX 3D. It succeeded in grossing more than $1 billion, becoming the eighth and fourth-fastest film to achieve this. So far, the film franchise has grossed $3.72 billion worldwide and it is the only franchise with two films that reached $1 billion worldwide. It has been confirmed that two more installments to the franchise are included in Disney's future plans. In July 2011, Johnny Depp confirmed he was closing in on a deal for a fifth installment and that the franchise wouldn't be going ahead without Depp's participation.

Although it has never been officially confirmed, there is strong evidence to suggest that the series was influenced by, and perhaps loosely based upon, the Monkey Island series of video games. Ted Elliott, one of the two screenwriters of the first four Pirates of the Caribbean films, was allegedly the writer of a Steven Spielberg-produced animated film adaptation of Monkey Island entitled The Curse of Monkey Island (presumably based on the game of the same name), which was cancelled before its official announcement, three years prior to the release of The Curse of the Black Pearl. This film was allegedly in production at Industrial Light & Magic before being cancelled