‘Pirates of the Caribbean – The Curse of the Black Pearl’s Production Was a Mess

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl may be one of the greatest action-adventure movies of the 21st century. Based on the beloved Disney theme park attraction and released in 2003, deeply underwhelming sequels aside, there was nothing like it. It was a classic adventure story with a modern spin, iconic characters, and star-solidifying performances from the entire cast. Let it never be forgotten what a runaway success that first film was; it was lightning in a bottle that not even its franchise was able to replicate. Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) was an icon, the world fell in love with Keira Knightley, it was an incredible second wind for Orlando Bloom after The Lord of the Rings, and that’s not even mentioning the endlessly entertaining performances of Geoffrey Rush, Zoë Saldaña, and Jack Davenport.

That makes it all the more shocking, then, that the film almost didn’t happen at all. While not as infamously cursed as other sets, the first Pirates of the Caribbean film had a chaotic production story from beginning to end. It makes sense for an ambitious project filled with giant action sequences to not offer the easiest days on set, and the lack of spooky supernatural backstories or severe casualties shields The Curse of the Black Pearl from the infamy attributed to disastrous productions like The Exorcist or The Wizard of Oz. However, despite not looking for trouble, the cast and crew manning this ship still managed to find it at every turn.

Disney Executive Michael Eisner Didn’t Believe in ‘The Curse of the Black Pearl’

From the very beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the director Gore Verbinski and the writers Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, and Jay Wolpert were underdogs. They were treading dangerous waters even with the concept of making a pirate movie, given that it was a genre that was considered dead by most after the spectacular failure of 1995’s Cutthroat Island. Not only that, but the film was also an adaptation of a theme park attraction, something the studio has failed three times already, with Tower of Terror (1997), and Mission to Mars (2000). Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl was originally planned to be a direct-to-DVD movie, like a Disney animated sequel, which shows how little faith the studio, and then-CEO Michael Eisner, had in the project.

This caused the entire film’s production to be rather touch-and-go, with Eisner feeling motivated to shut it all down at multiple points. He thought that the PG-13 rating that the film would inevitably earn — The Curse of the Black Pearl was Disney’s first PG-13 release — would scare away young audiences. Furthermore, he thought that teens would consider an adaptation of the cheesy ride at Disneyland uncool. According to James B. Stewart‘s DisneyWar, the budget was also an issue, as Eisner was unwilling to give the crew the sizable budget required to make a movie that would match the competition. In 2002, The Country Bears Movie, another Disney park adaptation, flopped at the box office, which almost drove Eisner to halt production once again before eventually being convinced to hold off by Verbisnki and his crew.

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Another elephant in the room was Depp’s performance choices as Captain Jack Sparrow. The original concept was a relatively stock-standard cool pirate character, with Hugh Jackman originally being floated for the role. Depp would be the one to turn Errol Flynn into Keith Richards, believing that since pirates were sort of the rock stars of their day, giving the role more of a psychedelic edge would make it read to modern audiences. To say the least, the studio was unimpressed and confused by Depp’s performance at first. They stuck with it regardless, and Verbinski was given his budget of $140 million. However, money doesn’t solve everything, and this was only the beginning of a bumpy ride.

Seasickness and a Tight Schedule Made Filming ‘The Curse of the Black Pearl’ Difficult

Those in the know about film production could deduce that a pirate movie would be a rough job because they had to shoot parts of the film on the open sea. Whether it’s a controlled body of water like in The Abyss, or building a set on the ocean like Waterworld, shooting in water often winds up being a bad time for the cast and crew, causing, at best, constant inconveniences and, at worst, injuries. People generally like the ocean, but they shouldn’t necessarily be around it for an extended period of time, and nor should expensive film equipment. The crew was also given a mere five months to shoot the film on location in St. Vincent, an island (where else) in the Caribbean. Another complication was that Keira Knightley was 17 during filming. This meant her mother had to be present at every shoot, and the young actress had to be flirted with by greasy pirates who were twice her age. Johnny Depp says in the film’s audio commentary that he felt a hundred years old when this happened.

Assorted stories from the shoot can be found on the DVD audio commentary, and the behind-the-scenes documentary An Epic At Sea: The Making of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. There’s an abridged commentary from Knightley and Davenport and a full commentary by Verbinski and Depp, their reminiscing from the time of filming giving us many stories to dive into. For example, in September 2002, before the principal shooting even began, a fire broke out on one of the sets, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, though thankfully no one was injured.

Keira Knightley Was Marooned on a Reef While Shooting the First ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’

When they actually got to shooting The Curse of the Black Pearl, however, the ocean was the harshest mistress. The locals of the islands knew that night shoots on the reef were a bad idea, and they were proven right when Keira Knightley and her mother got stuck on a reef, being marooned for nearly an hour before being rescued. People got incredibly seasick on set, and the medication to remedy this caused extreme drowsiness which would severely hamper production. Despite this, they persisted, and they started doing night shoots on an enclosed set.

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With the shooting schedule for the film being so tight, the crew had to shoot constantly to keep on schedule, which caused a lot of flubs that people didn’t seem to notice, such as crew members being visible in the frame. The final product was finished only four months before the premiere, and Gore Verbinski would reportedly pull 18-hour days for the edit. It was an endurance test of filmmaking, but in the end, it paid off. No one was seriously injured, the film was released on time, and it was a massive hit.

Like any endurance test, the difficult production of the first Pirates of the Caribbean served to make the film and the people involved stronger. The chaos, and the constant fear of Michael Eisner killing the project, brought the team together to make something truly special. This writer has pondered a couple of times whether a chaotic production story was worth it for the final product, but in the case of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, there’s no question that it was. Will that magic be recaptured in the upcoming reboot? Only time will tell. But Verbinski, the cast, and the crew took every risk and weathered every challenge to give us a real treasure of a film.