Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean Was Almost Scrapped Because of 1 Flop Disney Movie
Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the biggest movie franchises to come out of Disney. The franchise has grossed over $4.5 billion worldwide and is the 15th highest-grossing film series of all time. It is also the first film series to have two or more movies that grossed over $1 billion.
Many might not know that the Pirates of the Caribbean series is actually based on a Disney theme park attraction. Disney has made many movies based on their theme park rides and Pirates of the Caribbean is probably the biggest success of them all. However, the movie almost did not materialize due to a previous Disney flop.
One movie’s failure almost killed the Pirates of the Caribbean production
Disney theme parks have been one of the biggest attractions for the company, generating high revenue each year. It all started with Disneyland down in Anaheim, CA, which debuted in 1955. Later, Disney went on to open parks in many places, including Orlando, Paris, and even Shanghai. The increasing popularity of the parks gave Disney a unique idea. Instead of going the usual route of basing theme park attractions around Disney movies, they decided to flip it around and try something original.
However, making movies out of theme park rides was not an easy task. Choosing the right rides and translating their vision onto the screen was quite a herculean feat. Some of these movies include names like The Haunted Mansion, Tomorrowland, and Mission to Mars, none of which managed to become box-office hits. One of these movies in particular, Country Bears, almost scrapped Disney’s biggest movie series, Pirates of the Caribbean, from even happening due to its major failure.
Country Bears was such a misfire by the studio that Disney incurred huge losses. Combined with the failure of previous movies, Disney almost wanted to pull the break on theme park ride-based movies. According to reports by Jim Hill Media, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner decided against continuing the production of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Country Bears was made on a budget of $35 million, but it only managed to recover around one-third of the money. This prompted Eisner to shut down production of Pirates of the Caribbean.
How did Pirates of the Caribbean get back on Disney’s map?
Director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer were made out of stubborn materials. They decided to go against Michael Eisner’s orders and continue the production of the movie anyway. The progress ultimately ended up changing Michael Eisner’s mind and the movie got greenlit.
They even had disagreements on the title, The Curse of the Black Pearl. However, the original title was kept at the end. The movie, made on a budget of $140 million, went on to gross $654 million worldwide. Dead Man’s Chest and On Stranger Tides made over $1 billion worldwide. If director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer had not fought so hard for the franchise’s survival, a great pop culture phenomenon would have been lost.
All Pirates of the Caribbean movies are available to watch on Disney+.
