Johnny Depp's pirate, with his bling, mascara and fey ways, has helped the Caribbean movies make a mint, writes Phillip McCarthy.
characters. From Edward Scissorhands and Willy Wonka as fictional sketches, to gonzo journalist Hunter S.
Thompson and cross-dressing director Ed Wood as realist portraits, it's a distinctive gallery. movies.
For better or worse, his woozy, slightly fey Captain Jack Sparrow, who is setting sail in the third, and reputedly final instalment of the blockbuster series, is Depp's signature role.
The sequel earning 40 per cent more than the first. If the third film proves a winner, the franchise may retrieve some of the box office The third film, At World's End, is the most expensive ($300 million), the most lavishly cast and the longest-running. It has outgrown the 17th-century Caribbean pirate universe, enlisting the linked businesses ringing.
(Depp) not so long ago, says Gore Verbinski, who directed all three films.
"But that was before he had kids, could see how little kids, their parents, their teenage brothers, think Captain Jack is about the coolest dude to stumble out of a movie in decades."
Depp reinvented the pirate the first time round.
The way to make create an Errol Flynn swashbuckler of old but more an ageing, prototype, The Curse of the Black Pearl, suggested his interpretation was a nicely balanced mix of art and commerce.
one," Verbinski says.
"Naturally, when they got wind of the Keith Richards inspiration ran the risk of turning audiences off.
And I had to say to them, movie?' You had to do something radical or else it was over."
Depp and Verbinski made a 21st-century pirate.
A little mascara. Lots of idiosyncratic bling. A jaunty set of bandannas.
All cabin and foreign ports.
British actor Bill Nighy, who plays the villain Davy Jones in the second and third films, said he was "as surprised as anyone to permanently attached to my face.
"I owe that to Johnny.
A squid-human hybrid gets better pay than a classical actor. I am, as they say, set for life. There wouldn't make pirates new and different.
"
When Curse of the Black Pearl was released in 2003, it was a self-contained film. It efficiently posed and resolved its story of love, piracy and ghost ships. But it took $US650 million, which meant one thing: sequels.
novel," Verbinski says. "So all we had, when we went from a single film to a trilogy, was a blank canvas and a pair of release dates. one, our writers, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, kind of rifled the in the second film and tie up now.
"
parade of history's pillagers and plunderers, including Chow Yun-Fat's Captain Sao Feng, who is the pirate lord of Singapore and who was based on a 19th-century Cantonese pirate, Cheung Po Tsai Jack Sparrow's father.
Three days were blocked out for Richards, who, as Captain Teague, the one-time pirate Lord of Madagascar, is now an expert on pirate code and etiquette. Gaunt and pallid he clearly shares genetic material, or bad habits, with his son, Jack Sparrow.
He doesn't do much on screen but he was hard work off it.
"Keith Richards certainly doesn't stay where you put him," Verbinski says. "Johnny gets a lot of what he does, the volatility, from Keith, but with Johnny it's acting and he can turn it on and off and Keith can't because it really is him.
When he arrived on is a pirate, born out of his time.
like a director and more like a nature photographer. "I was that insect in its environment.
He's witty, sharp as a tack, he can just drift off. You can be rolling and telling him how to hit his mark, what to say, but then something will catch his eye and he'll wander over and sniff a plant."
instalment makes another $US1 billion?
It easily could if the again. Despite Disney's daring use of the word "end" in the title, idea. A fourth Indiana Jones film, for example, is slated for release next year after a hiatus of almost 19 years.
"For now, we're done," producer Jerry Bruckheimer said. "We've characters we started out with. Which is not to say we couldn't do something else with different characters some time later.
Keywords: Jack Sparrow, Captain Jack, Black Pearl, Depp s, Sparrow s, Keith Richards
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