Pirates of the Caribbean's Reboot Can Fix The Franchise

Rumors are spreading that Disney plan to reboot the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise - here's how they should take the series past Jack Sparrow. For the past decade or so, The Walt Disney Company have remained the unimpeachable giants of Hollywood film-making and the worldwide entertainment complex. Their recent acquisition of 20th Century Fox was merely the icing on top of an already rich cake, thanks to their purchases of Marvel Studios and the Star Wars franchise as well as the box office record-breaking successes of their own properties. As of the writing of this post, Disney are responsible for four of the top ten highest grossing movies of 2018 so far, with three of them having made over $1 billion worldwide and the quartet of titles having a combined gross of around $5.24 billion. Between superheroes, Jedi and live-action remade classics, Disney have cemented their status as the top dogs in Hollywood.

Yet Disney remains surprisingly lacking in one key area of their output. While live-action remakes to beloved classics like Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella and The Jungle Book have brought them billions of dollars and helped to rejuvenate priceless brands, their other live-action properties have been less than stellar in terms of critical and commercial clout. A Wrinkle in Time proved to be a costly gamble that did not pay off. Outside of a planned co-produced adaptation of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl books (to be directed by Kenneth Branagh) and a Jungle Cruise movie with Dwayne Johnson, Disney don’t seem to be investing in more live-action properties unless they’re remaking familiar titles with stories that don’t require any work.

The exception to that rule remains the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. It's been running for over 15 years, in which time just five movies have made over $4.5 billion. And yet, it seems spent after the disappointing Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. What went wrong, and how can we fix it?

This Page: What Went Wrong With Pirates of the Caribbean
Page 2: The Perfect Replacement For Jack Sparrow Already Exists
Page 3: Other Changes That Need To Be Made To Pirates of the Caribbean

Pirates of the Caribbean "Saved" Disney

The Pirates of the Caribbean Depp Johnny

In 2003, when Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl debuted, it was a massive risk on Disney’s part that most people thought would be an instant flop; it was an expensive film based on a theme park ride, from a genre that hadn’t been profitable in a long time, and starring an indie favorite doing a drunken Keith Richards impression. Even then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner thought it was a disaster in waiting. Then it made over $654 million worldwide – the fourth highest grossing movie of 2004 – got rapturous critical reviews and landed its leading man, Johnny Depp, an Oscar nomination. Finally, it seemed that Disney had a franchise that could keep up with its competition, such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and The Matrix series.

It didn’t take long for Disney to harness the franchise potential of Pirates of the Caribbean. Two sequels were put into production in 2005, with Dead Man's Chest and At World's End being shot back to back. Famously, this happened without either movies having completed scripts when shooting started. And while critics' responses were weaker to this duo of films, the box office numbers were impressive and the pair made a combined total of $2 billion worldwide.

Four years later, Disney released a fourth Pirates film, On Stranger Tides. Johnny Depp returned as the now iconic Captain Jack Sparrow but Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley were out and director Gore Verbinski was replaced by Rob Marshall. The film still made over $1 billion worldwide but reviews were weak and the film's rumored budget of $378 million made it the most expensive movie ever produced (not adjusting for inflation). Still, the films did very well internationally, especially in the much coveted Chinese market, so a fifth film was inevitable. Six years later saw the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and this was where the wheels started to fall off the franchise.

Where The Jack Sparrow Pirates of the Caribbean Went Wrong

The Pirates of the Caribbean Jack_and_Will

The production of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales was mired in controversy, from rumors over its ballooning budget to reports of Johnny Depp’s bad behavior on-set (as well as the revelation that he was having his lines fed to him via earpiece). Matters weren’t helped when the story of Depp’s alleged domestic abuse against his now ex-wife Amber Heard appeared in headlines a few months before the film’s premiere. It’s hard to quantify if those headlines hurt the film but they certainly didn’t help its box office; it opened to the franchise’s lowest ever domestic numbers as well as the second lowest international grosses. While the film still managed to make close to $800 million in total, it failed to land in the top ten highest grossing films of its year, something every other addition to the franchise had managed with ease. Even Chinese audiences seemed to have been hit with Pirates fatigue.

While audiences have grumbled about being sick of reboots and that it’s too soon for Disney to completely overhaul the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, it makes sense that they would want to freshen up what remains the jewel in their live-action crown, independent of their many acquisitions. The franchise is too well established to simply end, particularly in its placement in Disney’s many theme parks. Their newest park in Shanghai opened with a Pirates of the Caribbean ride whose story was completely new and not based on the original ride the films were adapted from. Add to that the profits of merchandising and Disney won’t be letting the Pirates out to pasture any time soon. But where does it go from here?

Page 2: The Perfect Replacement For Jack Sparrow Already Exists

Jack Sparrow looks at a bottle in a ship in The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Pirates of the Caribbean Should Cut Jack Sparrow...

The Johnny Depp problem has become the elephant in the room that nobody at Disney, or indeed any other major studio, seems willing to deal with. Even if his films continue to make money - and it’s doubtful the inevitable financial success of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald will be something he can chalk up as a personal victory - the PR issue is too big to ignore. Depp has also become increasingly costly to work with, as was evident in the many problems of lateness encountered during the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie. He is also currently being sued for allegedly punching a crew member on the film City of Lights (which was shelved indefinitely by the production company). The Pirates of the Caribbean films are already incredibly expensive to make, from Depp’s eye-watering salary to the growing scale of the films themselves - and it’s not paying off anymore. From a purely business point-of-view, it’s time for Depp to leave.

But from the creative side of the conversation, the franchise could also hugely benefit from the retirement of Captain Jack Sparrow. The character has grown stale - as has Depp’s performance - and continuing to focus the entire franchise on him has limited the storytelling opportunities. After all, the films are called the Pirates of the Caribbean, not The Jack Sparrow Story. The ocean is pretty big and there are plenty of other crews to follow in their adventures. Indeed, the theme park attraction itself offers the perfect alternative.

...And Replace Him With Redd

In 2017, The Walt Disney Company made the divisive choice to remove one of the most iconic and controversial elements of the Pirates of the Caribbean from the decades-old attraction. The auction scene - which had the illustrious honor of making the Pirates ride the only Disney attraction with a sex slave auction in it - was taken out in an attempt to modernize the experience for visitors. While that decision has seen mixed responses from fans, the introduction of the redheaded woman from the ride into the parks as a walkabout character has been far more popular.

Eagle-eyed fans of the first Pirates movie may recognize the character, there named Scarlett, from a brief appearance that was merely intended to be a fun Easter egg for lovers of the ride. But now, Redd as she is known, is popular with park visitors and has proven to be a fun character who would be well-suited to her own film. The action doesn’t necessarily have to be centered on her - the first Pirates movie wasn’t focused on Jack Sparrow either - but Disney would be naïve at best to think a vibrant action-adventure movie with a female protagonist wouldn’t do wonders for business, especially in our current blockbuster climate.

Page 3: Other Changes That Need To Be Made To Pirates of the Caribbean

Will and Elizabeth in Pirates of the Caribbean

A Pirates of the Caribbean Reboot Should Move Past The Turners (And Their Formula)

Originally, the first Pirates of the Caribbean film was supposed to be the Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann show, a launching pad for two rising young actors with major movie-star potential. It’s Will and Elizabeth who get the story’s true emotional and character arcs, not Jack Sparrow. Yet Depp’s unexpectedly genius performance, which subverted all the hero expectations, stole the show and soon the franchise became completely focused on him. Yet once the Turners left the franchise in At World’s End, attempts to replicate their dynamic failed miserably in On Stranger Tides. Will was brought back for Dead Men Tell No Tales, only now he had a young son who could help create a soft relaunch of the franchise that returned the action back to the Turners.

Yet that plan hasn’t been especially fruitful either. Just as focusing an entire franchise on Jack Sparrow has become limiting, so has the necessity for every character from the first film to remain a key part of the narrative several movies in, long after their stories have come to their natural conclusion. Audiences didn’t care about the blatant wannabe Will and Elizabeth from On Stranger Tides, and they weren’t especially excited by Will’s son or Barbossa’s daughter in Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Pirates of the Caribbean's Reboot Should Focus On The Magic

Originally, Pirates of the Caribbean wasn’t supposed to have any supernatural elements since the ride doesn’t have them. It wasn’t until producer Jerry Bruckheimer asked screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio to include one that The Curse of the Black Pearl became something truly special. The story of the first movie is also pretty simple, with an easy to follow logic and just enough world-building to be expanded for future stories. The issue with the many Pirates sequels is that, in an attempt to increase the narrative’s epic nature, the mythology became bloated and over-complicated. The blending of multiple culture’s mythologies was strange enough - Caribbean culture plus Greek mythology plus voodoo plus gothic storytelling - but it also exposed how overstuffed the films had become. It didn’t help that the later films so wasted their fascinating mythologies, such as the way Dead Men Tell No Tales used the trident of Poseidon.

The magic element should stay but these stories also need to be seriously scaled back. From a purely budgetary point-of-view, that would be smart, but it would also help the franchise stand out. Every blockbuster series has to up the ante with every film, but there’s something to be said for a more stand-alone approach that zeroes in on one story and does over-complicate matters. Why not return to what made Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl so exciting and make an old-school pirate adventure movie with a supernatural twist? The last thing this franchise needs is to be more portentous.

Disney are good at old-fashioned fun that appeals to all ages, but they seem less interested in making that kind of live-action movies themselves since they’re miles ahead of the competition with their acquisitions and remakes. It’s a missed opportunity to appeal to an audience that is still crying out for Summer blockbuster fun that isn’t weighed down by the complexities of an expanded universe. Pirates of the Caribbean 6 could be the way forward if they scale things back, change focus and remember why people loved that first film so much.