Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) - Verbinski's sprawling Disney swashbuckler is a prime summer spectacle

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+ Best New Franchise of the Year + Best Pirate Movie of the Year

The propped up, attractive stars and a vivid title design and painting, evoking childhood's lively pirate yarns, adorn this effective poster for Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

In the early 1700s, the daughter of a high-ranking British Governor falls in love with a pirate, and they are whirled into an adventure, when his blood becomes the key to unlocking the curse of a pirate ship.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is written by Ted Elliott (Small Soldiers (1998)) and Terry Rossio (Deja Vu (2006)), with Stuart Beattie (The Protector (1997)) and Jay Wolpert (Whew! (1979-80)) contributing story elements, based on the Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride at Disney's theme parks, and directed by great Tennessean filmmaker Gore Verbinski (Mousehunt (1997)).
It is a fun swashbuckler throw-back tale that's loaded with peculiar characters, splashy colors and action sequences - and eye-catching CGI walking and fighting skeletons!
Johnny Depp's (Chocolat (2000)) Captain Jack Sparrow is a hit and charmingly original, and Orlando Bloom (Main Street (2010)) is a delicious treat to look at. 
The first Pirates movie is just around 10-15 minutes overlong, especially due to a bit many fighting scenes, - but it is still an excellent and rare blockbuster favorite.

Related post:

Gore Verbinski: Rango (2011) - Verbinski's amusing family western animation

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 140 mil. $
Box office: 654.2 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.67 times its cost)
[Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl premiered 28 June (Disneyland, California) and runs 143 minutes. Early development leaned towards a direct-to-video movie, before Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer boarded the ship. Disney were wary to make another ride-based movie after the flop of ride-based The Country Bears (2002), but were convinced in pre-production that the case was different with Pirates. Overt references to the theme park ride were removed from the script at the request of Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Shooting took place in Los Angeles, California, the Dominican Republic and in St Vincent and the Grenadines, a small Anglo-Caribbean country, from October 2002 - March 2003. The cave set took 5 months to build. 6 days were spent on open ocean shooting the ship battles between the Dauntless and the Black Pearl (both built on barges) and the Interceptor, which was re-dressed full-scale replica sailing ship the Lady Washington. The skeleton effects dictated shooting each of their scenes twice; with and without actors. Depp was paid 10 mil. $ for his performance. Verbinski reportedly spent 18 hour days in editing, which had only 4 months before the film's release. 250 effects shots consisted of removing modern sailboats from shots. The Curse of the Black Pearl banner was added to the title in the hopes that the film would perform well enough to allow a sequel. It became the first Disney movie to get e PG-13 rating. The film opened #1 to a 46.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 7 weeks in the top 5 (#2-#2-#3-#4-X-X-#5-#3-#5), grossing 305.4 mil. $ (46.7 % of the total gross) from a terrific 26-week release. Its success came as a surprise; it sold an estimated 50.64 mil. tickets in the US and marked Depp's entry to super leading man stardom. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 59.8 mil. $ (9.1 %) and the UK with 47.5 mil. $ (7.3 %). It was the 4th highest-grossing film of the year. It was the #1 movie internationally for 7 straight weeks. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this review. The film was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Actor (Depp) to Sean Penn for Mystic River, Sound Editing to Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Sound Mixing to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Makeup also to The Return of the King and Visual Effects also to The Return of the King. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe, won 1/5 BAFTA nominations and several other minor honors. It broke a record in North America's home video market by selling 11 mil. copies in its first week in sale; by 2004 it had made an extra 235.5 mil. $ on home video sales alone, which, if added into the equation, would change the film's status to that of a huge hit. The film spun a franchise that has so far born 4 sequels: Verbinski made the first terrific sequel Dead Man's Chest (2006) and the terrible 3rd film, At World's End (2007); Rob Marshall made On Stranger Tides (2011) and Norwegians Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg made Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017). Verbinski first returned with The Weather Man (2005). Depp returned in Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003); Bloom in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Keira Knightley (Thunderpants (2002)) in Love Actually (2003); and Geoffrey Rush (The Daughter (2015)) in Harvie Krumpet (2003, short) and theatrically in Intolerable Cruelty (2003). Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is certified fresh at 79 % with a 7.11/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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