Pirates of the Caribbean may have been inconsistent with its mythos, but the franchise revealed the major villain Blackbeard three movies earlier than most viewers thought. Released in 2003, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a huge success for Disney and massively outperformed expectations at the box office. The swashbuckling adventure movie was a hit with critics too, with Johnny Depp’s iconic performance as Jack Sparrow earning particular praise.
The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise soon spawned two sequels from director Gore Verbinski, both of which disappointed critics but performed well at the box office. The series pivoted its focus to Jack alone by the fourth film, 2011’s critically maligned Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. But few viewers realized that On Stranger Tides’ formidable villain Blackbeard actually made an early, uncredited appearance way back in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film.
Played with memorably nasty zeal by Deadwood star Ian McShane, On Stranger Tides’ Blackbeard was a more bloodthirsty brand of baddie than the earlier villain Captain Barbossa. But The Curse of the Black Pearl’s creepy crew member Jacoby (the skinny skeletal pirate who was best-known for having a grenade shoved in his ribcage) was originally given a larger role in the first film, and details of his character were later transferred to McShane’s On Stranger Tides villain. Jacoby’s role in the finished edit of The Curse of the Black Pearl may be smaller, but the minor villain nonetheless provided many elements of Blackbeard later in the series.
The character’s oversized beard, as well as his gimmick of lighting fuses in it, went on to be used by Blackbeard (having been inspired by actual nautical legends surrounding the legendary pirate in the first place). Not only that but in the commentary of the first movie, Kiera Knightley refers to Jacoby as “Blackbeard” years before the character appeared in the series, meaning that it’s possible the character’s original name in the movie's script may have been the same as McShane’s later villain.
McShane’s character has a larger role in the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean installment than Jacoby does in the first film, but his eventual (spoilers) demise in the movie is nowhere near as memorable as the Black Pearl crew member’s unfortunate exit. Not only that, but On Stranger Tides received worse critical write-ups than the first film of the series broadly speaking (although some reviewers did single out McShane’s performance as a high point). The fourth film in the franchise marked the moment that the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series began focusing its action entirely around Jack Sparrow, a decision that may have given fans more of Depp’s superb surreal turn in the role, but cost the series dearly in the long term and resulted in even worse reviews for the fifth film in the franchise, Dead Men Tell No Tales.