In 2003, the world of cinema is shaken by the arrival of an adventure film produced by Disney. In the main role, Johnny Depp, in very good shape, lends his features to a certain Jack Sparrow. The machine is launched: today, the saga is simply cult! If you love Pirates of the Caribbean, You are in the right place. NOW, it remains to be seen whether you will triumph in the quiz on the lines that we have concocted for you. Attention, the latter relates to the trilogy exclusively, because, let’s face it, the other two parts did not leave us with a great memory! You can find it at the bottom of the page.. First, let’s dissect the success of this more than risky feature film…
An announced shipwreck?
The first part of Pirates of the Caribbeanbaptized The Curse of the Black Pearl, a daring bet. Indeed, the register honoring privateers, ships and treasures is notorious for not attracting crowds. A fatality that occurred after the sixties: before this decade, works of this type were numerous and federated the public. Unfortunately, the genre has not been able to maintain itself over time, gradually disappearing from circulation. As proof, the monstrous commercial failure achieved by the film The Pirate Islands, with Geena Davis and Frank Langella. Released in 1995, the project even got the better of the production company that accompanied it, namely Carolco Pictures. One example among others, certainly, but you have understood the idea: the various studios showed a certain reluctance to the idea of embarking on this type of of works. However, Disney tried its luck, and this, by deciding to adapt to the screen one of its attractions. The saga is therefore not the result of a literary work – as is often the case. No, the plot of the first film was invented from a “merry-go-round”. It should be noted that the process exists mainly in the opposite direction, since, generally, it is feature films that give rise to attractions, like Star Wars.
If the company believed in it, and surrounded itself with a solid team, carried by the talented filmmaker Gore Verbinskinot everyone envisaged a bright future… Thus, Keira Knightley, who joined the cast of the first opus when she was barely eighteen, did not expect the project to take off his career. On the set of Love Actually, the brilliant actress indeed evoked her next role, in “a pirate film which (would) surely be a disaster”… Fortunately, the future did not prove her right! Conversely, the films achieved superb figures – 654 million dollars for The Curse of the Black Pearla little over a billion for The Secret of the Cursed Chest and 963 million for Till the end of the world. Disney has therefore done well to bet on this idea, but it must be admitted that the whimsical and quirky sidethe very inspired cast – special mention to Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) – as well as, above all, the performance of Johnny Depp, perfect as an eccentric pirate, have largely contributed to the success of feature films.
So, ready to take up the challenge? Let’s see if you can claim to enter piracy… Don’t forget to tell us your score in the comments !
By Marie-Mathilde Peyralbe
I’m Marie-Mathilde (my parents couldn’t choose). Author-screenwriter, I was plunged into the pot of cinematographic potion by them – and in particular my mother, who took me to the cinema to see The Lord of the Rings at the age of four. When I was little, I peeled magazines on the 7th art. Even if I’m still not very tall, here I am now on the other side of the mirror, and without pills to boot! As much moved by Pride and Prejudice as Kill Bill, a great lover of thrillers and other investigative stories, I particularly like to write about what relates to literature, series and cinema – and I am always on the lookout new releases.