Following Disney’s first few attempts to adapt one of its own theme park attractions into a feature-length film — Tower of Terror, Mission to Mars, and The Country Bear — nobody expected that the fourth time would be the charm. There was also some fear regarding its chances at the box office, including among some of the cast members, considering how even the best pirate movies did not have a great success rate at the time. However, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl ended up raking in a lot of booty, spawning a franchise that may not be finished yet, and even prompting renovations to the ride that inspired it with specific references.
It is hard to believe that it has been 20 years since we first saw famed pirate Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) joining forces with young blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) to take on the cursed Capt. Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and rescue the kidnapped Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). In honor of this milestone, we have dug deep to find some of the hidden treasures lurking beneath this beloved, adventurous blockbuster — some of which may have you jolly as a Roger, and others that will cause you to shiver your timbers. See for yourself by scoping out these behind-the-scenes facts from the first (and, arguably, the best of the) Pirates of the Caribbean movies — starting with a glimpse at how different the film may have been if a certain filmmaking legend was made captain of the crew.
Steven Spielberg Was Interested In Directing
I think most movie lovers would agree that, when it comes to directors, one of the most reliable names in action, adventure, and high-wire thrills must be Steven Spielberg — the helmer of classic blockbusters like Jaws, the Indiana Jones movies, and Jurassic Park, most notably. Given his reputation at the time, the Academy Award winner might have been a good choice to direct Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and, apparently, he could have if things turned out differently.
According to ScreenRant, the movie was first pitched in the early 1990s and caught the attention of Spielberg, whose take on the material did not quite match Disney’s intentions. He also had some unique potential actors in mind to play Capt. Jack — namely Bill Murray, Steve Martin, or the Peter Pan from his own pirate adventure, Hook: the late Robin Williams. With much respect and admiration for Spielberg and those brilliant comedic actors, I think it was for the best that the movie stayed shelved for a while.
The Director Wanted To Make The Movie Feel The Way The Original Ride Made Him Feel As A Kid
Directorial duties for the first Pirates would ultimately go to Gore Verbinski, who was previously best known for one of the best horror movie remakes of its time, 2002’s The Ring, and would also later reteam with Depp for a few projects outside the franchise — namely 2011’s Oscar-winning Rango and the Razzie-winning The Lone Ranger from 2013. What seemed to make the filmmaker a good fit for this kind of film was his affinity for the source material.
According to the DVD commentary for Black Pearl (via Film School Rejects), what Verbinski loved about Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean attraction as a child was how it managed to frighten him, but also make him laugh. He decided to honor that tone by making his adaptation scary and funny. As a swashbuckling adventure story with walking skeletons and a drunken lead character, I would say he nailed it in that regard.
Robert De Niro Was Reportedly Approached To Play Capt. Jack Sparrow
Of course, I think most would also agree that a good deal of credit for Black Pearl’s humor should go to Johnny Depp’s Academy Award-nominated performance as Capt. Jack Sparrow. Nowadays, it is impossible to imagine anyone else embodying what is considered one of Depp’s greatest characters, but he was not actually the first choice.
According to an article by U.K.-based news outlet, Express, none other than the legendary Robert De Niro was reportedly offered to play Capt. Jack, and even beat Jim Carrey for the role, but ultimately passed on it, fearing the film would suffer the same fate many other pirate movies had. The article goes on to say that, when his suspicions over the box office returns were proved wrong, the regretful Academy Award winner took a role in another swashbuckling fantasy adventure: the 2007 adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust… which actually turned out to be a flop.
Johnny Depp Based Jack Sparrow On Keith Richards And Pepe Le Pew
Depp’s unique inspiration for how he would portray Capt. Jack — an unlikely (almost reluctant) hero who finds himself, literally, stumbling into some badass action moments in a drunken stupor — is almost as famous as the character himself. In an interview promoting the somewhat successful fifth installment, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the actor recalled to ET Canada who his muses were.
He believed that because pirates were the “rock stars” of their time, he should try to emulate the personality of the one he believed was the all-time greatest rock star, Keith Richards, and fuse that with the rambunctiousness of one of pop culture’s most famous “lotharios,” Pepe Le Pew. While there is very little chance of Depp sharing the screen with the skunky, canceled Looney Tunes character any time soon, The Rolling Stones’ guitarist would join the franchise as Jack’s father.
Barbossa’s Personality Naturally Came Out Once Geoffrey Rush Put On His Hat
Jack Sparrow’s rival and his forced successor as captain of the Black Pearl, Hector Barbossa, also boasts a memorably boisterous personality that kept him a welcome staple of the franchise (until the end of Dead Men Tell No Tales, that is). Apparently, for Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush, getting into character did not require much thought.
While taking turns asking fan-generated questions for MovieFone’s Unscripted with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End co-stars Bill Nighy and Chow Yun-Fat, Rush initially joked that his inspiration for Barbossa was also Keith Richards and Pepe Le Pew. In reality, however, all it took was putting on the “brain of the character”: his hat, with a feather that suggested his “self-diluting flourishes of romantic grandeur” and a large, black brim that invoked the unbridled ego Barbossa wears on his sleeve.
Jack Sparrow’s Hat Had To Be Made Of Rubber
While Capt. Jack’s hat was not quite as important to Depp’s initial development of his character, it is just as (if not more) iconic than Barbossa’s hat. However, there is an interesting fact about the prop that makes it particularly special.
On the docuseries Prop Culture (which is no longer available on Disney+, unfortunately), Black Pearl’s costume designer, Penny Rose, showed host and co-creator Dan Lanigan the hat that Depp wore in the movie, which she mentioned was made of rubber. Reason being: the original design kept getting thrown overboard and, after losing 10 copies, she decided to craft one out of a material that would stay afloat.
Keira Knightley’s Cleavage Was Painted On Her Body To Play Elizabeth Swann
Jack’s rubber hat is not even the craziest story relating to costuming or makeup from the set of Black Pearl. That honor very easily goes to what Keira Knightley had to go through in order for the then-17-year-old to be visually up to par with how Disney envisioned her role as Elizabeth Swann.
The two-time Academy Award nominee told Refinery29 that her bust appears larger in the film than it does in reality because her cleavage was “literally painted on,” which she chalked up to being just another day in Hollywood at the time. Still, for her, I imagine it must have been quite a thing to go through for the sake of a film she did not have much faith in to begin with.
Keira Knightley Believed That The Movie Would Bomb
Robert De Niro was not the only one who had low faith in the commercial potential for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. However, some people who felt the same way still wound up appearing in the movie, such as Knightley.
The British actor was pretty convinced that this very expensive film was destined to flop — a fact that we learned not from her own mouth, but by the testimony of her previous collaborator, Richard Curtis, during an interview with ABC News. According to the filmmaker, Knightley was starring as Juliet in Love Actually when he asked about her next project, to which she replied, “I don’t think it’s going to work. It’s a pirate film and they always fail.”
Gore Verbinski Convinced Jack Davenport To Star By Positing The Movie Could Be The Best Pirates Film In Decades
Another Black Pearl cast member who did not have the highest hopes for the film was Jack Davenport. Then best known for the hit British sitcom, Coupling, he would find new fame among American audiences by appearing in the film as Commodore James Norrington, but it took a little convincing.
In an interview with ScreenSlam, Davenport was asked if he was ever a fan of pirate movies as a child before admitting he was not and, furthermore, did not believe there had been many “decent contemporary pirate films” in a while. However, he then mentions how Verbinski convinced him that, after “50 years” of disappointing big screen, swashbuckling adventures, this could be the one that would break the curse.
Zoe Saldaña Had A Negative Experience On Set
As we now know, Black Pearl would beat the odds by making more than $654 million worldwide (according to Box Office Mojo) and seemed to be a great success for everyone involved. Well, as it turns out, making the film actually proved to be dissatisfying for one then-up-and-coming cast member, Zoe Saldaña, who recalled the experience to The Hollywood Reporter in the following excerpt:
It was my first exposure to a major Hollywood mega movie, where there were just so many actors and so many producers and so many crew members. We were shooting in different locations, and the environments were not that agreeable, sometimes, to our shoot days. I was very young, and it was just a little too big for me, and the pace of it was a little too fast. I walked away not really having a good experience from it overall. I felt like I was lost in the trenches of it a great deal, and I just didn't feel like that was okay.
That explains why we never saw more of her character, Black Pearl crew member Anamaria, in further installments. Luckily, Saldaña would become more adept to the Hollywood experience, earn leading roles in multiple franchises (Avatar, Star Trek, and the MCU as Guardians of the Galaxy’s Gamora), and is now one of the top 10 highest-grossing actors of all time.
Hopefully, you found great reward in these behind the facts about The Curse of the Black Pearl. Now, all we can do is wonder if more treasures in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise are just over the horizon.
