The Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise has been one of the very profitable film series for Disney and that is the only reason why it has got 5 movies in the franchise. While only the first film had the biggest critical acclaim, the Rotten Tomatoes score for every sequel kept on degrading one after the other.
Now, after 5 whole movies involving the great adventures of Jack Sparrow, Disney has finally decided to reboot the franchise.
Here’s how the score for Rotten Tomatoes goes for every single film in the Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise:
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) – 79% Fresh
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) – 54% Rotten
Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End (2007) – 44% Rotten
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) – 32% Rotten
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) – 29% Rotten
So you could say that this is surely one of the franchises that the fans truly love, but does not have the critical acclaim. Disney on the other hand actually based this franchise on a theme ride in Disney Land. You would actually be surprised to know that Johnny Depp was not the first choice for playing Jack Sparrow.
The character was originally written keeping Hugh Jackman in mind and is even named after him. But gladly everything turned out for Depp to play the role and he brought in his own style & charisma which actually kept this franchise alive for 14 years.
Another big secret about the lead here is that Jack Sparrow was never meant to be the main character in the movie. Disney execs believed that fans would fall in love with the characters of Will and Elizabeth.
But as it turned out, Johnny Depp’s portrayal actually turned them into kind of supporting characters. But now it seems that even the audience is done with the way this franchise has been handled.
Disney’s Pirates Franchise has surprisingly been able to out-gross many other big franchises and similar to the above two franchises, they have also made big money in 5 of their movies. This Johnny Depp centric franchise has managed to bring in $4.52 Billion at the worldwide Box Office.
Here are the Box Office numbers for all the films: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl ($634 Million), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl ($1.06 Billion), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($963 Million), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($1.04 Billion) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales ($794 Million).
So if you consider the numbers, you would see that the franchise peaked with its second movie, but still had the legs to be a Billion Dollar franchise for the next two films. But by the fifth film, its profitability obviously degraded.
Still, reports that came out earlier this year suggested that director Joachim Rønning was expected to return for the sixth film in the franchise after having directed the latest installment, and the script was being penned down by Ted Elliot, Terry Rossio, and Jeff Nathanson.
But since Rønning is busy with Maleficent 2 which will come out on May 29, 2020, the production of the 6th Pirates film would not have begun until early 2020.
Also, we do not have a word upon whether Kiera Knightly or Orlando Bloom were supposed to return, and Johnny Depp’s future schedule is pretty tight as well. So, the 6th installment started to look pretty dicey.
And now we finally have the verdict that Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are being considered by Disney to write the reboot for Pirates of the Caribbean. Honestly, it is good to know that Disney is moving forward with a reboot instead of continuing the same story which was getting kinda repetitive.
Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow has been pretty popular amongst the audience, but we have to be honest that even he won’t be able to bring in a Billion Dollars for the next one. The fifth film has proven that.
When we can be okay with Hugh Jackman hanging up his claws, then we can certainly move on from Johnny Depp’s version of Jack Sparrow in the coming years. But it is needless to say that we will surely miss him in the iconic role.
