Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl


Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a 2003 American fantasy swashbuckler film directed by Gore Verbinski. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures via the Walt Disney Pictures label, the film is based on the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disney theme parks and is the first film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Starring Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley, it follows pirate Jack Sparrow and the blacksmith Will Turner, as they attempt to rescue the kidnapped Elizabeth Swann. The trio encounters Captain Hector Barbossa and the Black Pearl crew who are afflicted by a supernatural curse.
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. 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.
Pirates of the Caribbean had its world premiere at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, on June 28, 2003. It was theatrically released in the United States on July 9. Despite low expectations, the film was a massive box-office success: it grossed $654.3 million worldwide, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2003. It received generally positive reviews from critics, and Depp won a Screen Actors Guild Award. He was also nominated for his performance at the Academy Awards, BAFTAs, and Golden Globes. Pirates of the Caribbean was also nominated for additional Academy Awards and BAFTAs. The film was followed by four sequels: Dead Man's Chest, At World's End, On Stranger Tides, and Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Plot

In the early 18th century, Governor Weatherby Swann and his daughter, Elizabeth, sail aboard the HMS Dauntless, which is captained by Lieutenant Norrington. 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. Jack Sparrow, a pirate captain, arrives in Port Royal seeking a ship.
Norrington proposes to Elizabeth atop a cliff, but she faints and falls into the ocean due to her tight-fitting corset, causing the medallion she is carrying to emit a pulse. Jack rescues Elizabeth and discovers the medallion. Governor Swann orders Jack's execution after he is identified as a pirate, but Jack flees into Will's smithy, where he is caught after Will duels him to a stalemate.
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 to meet Captain Barbossa after she identifies herself as "Elizabeth Turner". Barbossa 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 thrown overboard after the theft, is missing. Believing Elizabeth to be Bootstrap's daughter, Barbossa intends to use her blood for the ritual.
Intent on rescuing Elizabeth, Will frees Jack, and together they steal the HMS Interceptor. They escape to Tortuga to recruit a crew from Joshamee Gibbs, who reveals Jack as the previous captain of the Black Pearl, whom Barbossa mutinied against and marooned 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 her medallion, but Jack is captured and imprisoned on the Pearl. A battle erupts between the ships, crippling the Interceptor. When Will learns that Bootstrap was his father, he surrenders, but threatens to kill himself unless Elizabeth and the crew are left unharmed. Barbossa imprisons the crew and maroons Jack and Elizabeth on the same island that Jack was previously exiled to. Jack reveals that the island was used as a rum smuggling cache for rum runners, who rescued him after only three days. Elizabeth signals for help using a bonfire fueled by the rum, leading the Royal Navy to rescue them. She agrees to marry Norrington if he saves Will from Barbossa.
Jack and Norrington concoct a plan to ambush the pirates at Isla de Muerta, but Jack reveals himself to the pirates and convinces Barbossa to delay lifting the curse until after killing Norrington's men. After Barbossa's crew leaves, Jack frees Will and attacks Barbossa, having surreptitiously pocketed a medallion to give himself immortality. Elizabeth frees Jack's crew on the Pearl, but they refuse to help and sail away without her. Jack shoots Barbossa just as Will returns his and Jack's medallions to the chest with their blood, breaking the curse and killing Barbossa. The remaining pirates are immediately defeated by the Navy.
At Port Royal, where Jack is to be imminently hanged for his crimes, Will declares his love for Elizabeth before rescuing Jack. Jack and Will are surrounded by Norrington's soldiers, but Elizabeth stands with Will, forcing Governor Swann to order the soldiers to stand down. Jack falls into the sea and is picked up by the Black Pearl. Norrington accepts that Elizabeth loves Will, and decides to give Jack a head start before pursuing him. Governor Swann gives his blessing to Will and Elizabeth, while Jack becomes captain of the Pearl once again.
In a post-credits scene, Jack, Barbossa's pet monkey, climbs onto the chest of gold in the cave on Isla de Muerta and takes a coin from it, becoming undead once more.

Cast

  • 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.
  • *Lucinda Dryzek as young Elizabeth Swann
  • Jack Davenport as Norrington: An officer in the Royal Navy who seeks to marry Elizabeth.
  • Kevin R. McNally as Joshamee Gibbs: Jack's loyal first mate who once served in the Royal Navy.
  • 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.
  • Jonathan Pryce as Governor Weatherby Swann: The father of Elizabeth and the governor of Port Royal.
  • Treva Etienne as Koehler: A lieutenant in Barbossa's cursed crew who is killed by Norrington.
  • David Bailie as Cotton: A member of Jack's crew. His parrot talks for him because his tongue was cut out.
  • Lee Arenberg as Pintel: A dimwitted member of the cursed crew.
  • Mackenzie Crook as Ragetti: A member of the cursed crew who has a wooden eye.
  • Isaac C. Singleton Jr. as Bo'sun, Barbossa's first mate
  • Martin Klebba as Marty, a dwarf pirate who joins Sparrows crew on the Interceptor
  • Damian O'Hare as Lieutenant Gillette, Norringtons Second-in-Command
  • Vince Lozano as Jacoby, a member of the cursed crew with a knack for explosives
Supporting characters include the cursed pirates Grapple, Mallott, and Twigg, and British Officer. The soldiers Murtogg and Mullroy are portrayed by Giles New and Angus Barnett, respectively.

Production

Development

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. By March 2002, Disney brought Stuart Beattie in to rewrite the script because of his knowledge of piracy. 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.
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. Undeterred, the writing team refused to give up the dream, waiting for a studio to pick up their take on a pirate tale. 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". 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, he rejected Jay Wolpert's script because it was "a straight pirate movie". Later in March 2002, Bruckheimer brought Elliott and Rossio, who suggested making a supernatural curse—as described in the opening narration of the ride—the film's plot.
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.
In May 2002, Gore Verbinski signed on to direct Pirates of the Caribbean. 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.
Although Cook had been a strong proponent of adapting Disney's rides into films, the box-office failure of The Country Bears 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.
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.