Two sequels toPirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl were conceived in 2004, with Elliott and Rossio developing astory arc that would span both films. Filming took place from February to September 2005 inPalos Verdes,Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,Dominica, andThe Bahamas, as well as on sets constructed atWalt Disney Studios. It was shot back-to-back with the third film of the series,At World's End (2007). With a production budget of $225 million, it was themost expensive film ever made at the time of its release.
Dead Man's Chest premiered at theDisneyland Resort on June 24, 2006, and was released in the United States on July 7, to mixed reviews from critics. The film broke several records at the time, including the opening-weekend record in the United States with $136 million and the fastest film to gross over $1 billion at the worldwide box office (63 days), and became thehighest-grossing film of 2006, thethird highest-grossing film of all time at the time of its release, and the highest-grossing film in the series. It was also the highest-grossing film released byDisney until it was surpassed byToy Story 3 in 2010. The film received four nominations at the79th Academy Awards (winningBest Visual Effects).
Meanwhile, aboard theBlack Pearl, Jack is visited by Will's father,Bootstrap Bill Turner, who is now a crewman of theFlying Dutchman, captained byDavy Jones. He marks Jack with theBlack Spot and reminds him that he previously bartered a deal with Jones to raise thePearl from the depths in exchange for his freedom - a debt Jack failed to repay - and must now serve aboard theDutchman or he will be dragged intoDavy Jones' Locker by theKraken. Meanwhile, revealingLetters of Marque intended for Jack signed byKing George, Beckett offers to free Will and Elizabeth in exchange for Will recovering Sparrow's compass.
Will finds Jack and his crew on an island and helps them escape fromcannibals. Afterward, Jack visitsvoodoo priestessTia Dalma, who helps in finding the Dead Man's Chest, which holds Davy Jones' still-beatingheart; whoever has it can control Davy Jones. Will makes a deal with Jack to find the key to the chest in return for Jack's compass but is tricked into servitude with Jones' crew aboard theDutchman in Jack's stead. Jones agrees to free Sparrow from servitude if he can provide 99 more souls. Will reunites with his father, Bootstrap Bill, aboard theDutchman and learns that Jones possesses the key through a game ofLiar's Dice. Will escapes with the key and climbs aboard theEdinburgh Trader. Jones summons the Kraken and sinks the ship, but Will manages to escape.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth's father,Governor Swann, breaks her out of prison but is captured himself. Elizabeth steals the Letters of Marque from Beckett and makes her way toTortuga, where she finds both Jack and a drunken Norrington. Jack tricks Elizabeth into using his compass to find Jones' chest. All parties arrive onIsla Cruces, where the chest is buried. A three-waysword fight breaks out between Jack, Will, and Norrington, who all want the heart for their respective goals: Jack wants to call off the Kraken and negate his debt to Jones; Will wants to release his father from theDutchman; and Norrington intends to regain his life as a Navy officer. Norrington secretly steals the heart and the Letters of Marque in the chaos before running off, pretending to lure away theDutchman crew. Jones and the Kraken attack thePearl, killing most of the crew and destroying all but one of thePearl's lifeboats. Jack uses the boat to flee the battle briefly but returns to help wound the Kraken with a net full ofgunpowder andrum.
Jack orders the survivors to abandon ship, but Elizabeth realizes the Kraken only wants Jack. Elizabeth tricks Jack and chains him to the mast so the crew can escape while the Kraken drags Jack and thePearl to the depths. Seemingly satisfied that Sparrow's debt is settled, Jones opens the chest to find his heart missing. Norrington gives Beckett the Letters and Jones's heart, reinstating him in the Navy and allowing the East India Trading Company to gain control of Jones. Jack's crew returns to Tia Dalma, where they agree about the possibility of rescuing Sparrow at "world's end". Tia Dalma introduces their guide: theresurrectedHector Barbossa.
Johnny Depp asCaptain Jack Sparrow: The eccentric pirate captain of theBlack Pearl. He is hunted by the Kraken because of his unpaid debt to Davy Jones. He is also searching for the Dead Man's Chest to free himself from Jones' servitude.
Orlando Bloom asWilliam Turner: Ablacksmith-turned-pirate who strikes a deal with Cutler Beckett to find Jack Sparrow and his compass so he can save both himself and hisfiancée Elizabeth from execution. Later he is reunited with, and seeks to free, his father, who eventually owes a lifetime of servitude to Davy Jones.
Keira Knightley asElizabeth Swann: Governor Swann's daughter and Will's fiancée, who is arrested on her wedding day for helping Captain Jack Sparrow escape. Escaping jail with help from her father, she meets up with Jack inTortuga and joins his crew to search for both Will and the chest.
Stellan Skarsgård asWilliam "Bootstrap Bill" Turner: A crewman aboard the Flying Dutchman who happens to be Will Turner's father. He was cursed by theAztecgold onIsla de Muerta (along withHector Barbossa's crew). Thrown overboard after refusing to take part in the mutiny against Jack led by Barbossa, he spent years bound to acannon beneath the crushing ocean. Found by Davy Jones, he swore to servitude aboard theFlying Dutchman crew and escaped death.
Bill Nighy asDavy Jones: Captain of theFlying Dutchman. Davy Jones was once a human being. Unable to bear the pain of losing his true love, he carved out his heart and put it into the Dead Man's Chest, then buried it in a secret location. He has become a bizarre creature – partoctopus, partcrab, part man – and collects the souls of dead or dying sailors to serve aboard his ship for one hundred years. Prior to officially casting Bill Nighy, producers also metJim Broadbent,Iain Glen andRichard E. Grant for the role.[3] Other actors considered for the role includedChristopher Walken andIan McShane, with the latter being cast later asBlackbeard inPirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.[4]
Jack Davenport asJames Norrington: He resigned his commission as Commodore in the Royal Navy after losing his ship and crew in ahurricane off the coast ofTripoli in the pursuit of Jack Sparrow and his crew. Fallen on hard times, he joins theBlack Pearl's crew and seeks to regain his honor and career.
Jonathan Pryce asGovernor Weatherby Swann. Elizabeth's father and governor ofPort Royal. He adores his daughter but puts little faith in Will - not considering him the best match for Elizabeth.
Mackenzie Crook asRagetti: A pirate and formerBlack Pearl crewmember under CaptainBarbossa, he was imprisoned after the Aztec curse was broken, but escaped to rejoin Captain Jack Sparrow'sBlack Pearl crew. He has a wooden eye, and despite being illiterate, has begun "reading" theBible, with the excuse that "you get credit for trying".
Tom Hollander asLord Cutler Beckett: Chairman of the East India Trading Company, he travels to Port Royal to capture and recruit Jack Sparrow as aprivateer. What he really desires is Davy Jones' heart, with which he can rule the seas with Jones' commanded servitude.Ricky Gervais was offered the role but turned it down.[5]
Naomie Harris asTia Dalma: Anobeah priestess who Jack bartered with for his magic compass. She explains thelegend of Davy Jones, in addition to owning a similar locket to his.
Alex Norton as Captain Bellamy, the pirate captain of theEdinburgh Trader.
David Bailie as Cotton, a mute member of the Black Pearl's crew.
Martin Klebba as Marty, a dwarf member of the Black Pearl's crew.
David Schofield as Ian Mercer, Lord Beckett's second in command
John Boswall as Wyvern, an ancient member of Davy Jones’ crew who has fused with the ship.
Derrick O'Connor as Very Old Man, an inexperienced sailor in Jack Sparrow's crew.
Geoffrey Rush asHector Barbossa, the former captain of theBlack Pearl and Jack Sparrow's former first mate. An uncredited role, having originally met his demise in the previous installment, Barbossa is revealed to have beenresurrected by Tia Dalma in the final scene of this film.
Following the success ofPirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), the cast and crew signed on for two moresequels to beshot back-to-back,[6] a practical decision on Disney's part to allow more time with the same cast and crew.[7] WriterTed Elliott andTerry Rossio decided not to make the sequels new adventures featuring the same characters, as with theIndiana Jones andJames Bond series, but to retroactively turnThe Curse of the Black Pearl into the first of a trilogy.[8] They wanted to explore the reality of what would happen afterWill Turner andElizabeth Swann's embrace at the end of the first film, and initially considered theFountain of Youth as the plot device.[9] They settled on introducingDavy Jones, theFlying Dutchman and theKraken. They also introduced the historicalEast India Trading Company, who for them represented a counterpoint to the themes of personal freedom represented by pirates.[10]
Planning began in June 2004, and production was much larger thanThe Curse of the Black Pearl, which was only shot on location inSt. Vincent.[11] This time, the sequels would require fully working ships, with a seaworthyBlack Pearl built over the body of theSunset, an unglamorous craft which once serviced oil derricks in the Gulf of Mexico constructed in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.[12] By November, the script was still unfinished as the writers did not want directorGore Verbinski and producerJerry Bruckheimer to compromise what they had written, so Verbinski worked withJames Byrkit to storyboard major sequences without need of a script, while Elliott and Rossio wrote a "preparatory" script for the crew to use before they finished the script they were happy with. By January 2005, with rising costs and no script, Disney executives threatened to cancel the film, but changed their minds. The writers would accompany the crew on location, feeling that the lateness of their rewrites would improve the spontaneity of the cast's performances.[9]
Principal photography began on February 28, 2005,[12] inPalos Verdes, beginning with Elizabeth's ruined wedding day.[9] ForCutler Beckett's introduction, Rossio and Elliott had him arrive on shore in a boat while sitting on a horse standing in the boat; the duo had originally planned to use this introduction for Don Rafael Montero inThe Mask of Zorro (1998), but the scene was cut for being deemed too expensive. Similarly, thePirates crew wanted to cut the idea for budget reasons, in addition to feel that it would be unbelievable, or as the film's historian dismissed, suicidal. However, Verbinski promised Rossio and Elliott to use the idea and the scene was filmed in one day after weeks of planning and training.[13] The crew spent the first shooting days atWalt Disney Studios in Los Angeles, including the interiors of theBlack Pearl and theEdinburgh Trader which Elizabeth stows away on,[12] before moving toSt. Vincent to shoot the scenes inPort Royal andTortuga. Sets from the previous film were reused, having survived three hurricanes, although the main pier had to be rebuilt as it had collapsed in November. The crew had four tall ships at their disposal to populate the backgrounds, which were painted differently on each side for economy.[7] One of the ships used wasthe replica ofHMSBounty used in the 1962film adaptation ofMutiny on the Bounty.[14][15]
On April 18, 2005,[16] the crew began shooting atDominica, a location Verbinski had selected as he felt it fitted the sense of remoteness he was looking for.[9] However, this was also a problem; the Dominican government were completely unprepared for the scale of a Hollywood production, and the 500-strong crew occupying around 90% of the roads on the island had trouble moving around on the underdeveloped surfaces. The weather also alternated between torrential rainstorms and hot temperatures, the latter of which was made worse for the cast who had to wear period clothing. At Dominica, the sequences involvingPelegosto (Cannibal Island) and the forest segment of the battle onIsla Cruces were shot. Verbinski preferred to use practical props for the giant wheel and bone cage sequences, feeling long close-up shots would help further suspend the audience's disbelief.[7] Dominica was also used forTia Dalma's shack. Filming on the island concluded on May 26, 2005.[17]
The crew moved to a small island in the Bahamas calledWhite Cay for the beginning and end of the Isla Cruces battle,[7] before production took a break until August, where in Los Angeles the interiors of theFlying Dutchman were shot.[18] On September 18, 2005,[19] the crew moved toGrand Bahama Island to shoot ship exteriors, including the workingBlack Pearl andFlying Dutchman. Filming there was a tumultuous period, starting with the fact that the tank had not actually been finished. The hurricane season caused many pauses in shooting, andHurricane Wilma damaged many of the accessways and pumps, though no one was hurt nor were any of the ships destroyed.[7] Principal photography was reportedly completed on September 10, 2005.[citation needed] According to Ted Elliott, production wrapped on February 7, 2006,[20] with the last shot made was theraven pecking on Jack Sparrow'scoffin.[21] This was after two weeks of filming night scenes, from sunset to sunrise.[22]
The look of theFlying Dutchman was partially inspired by old Dutch "fluyts"—17th-century vessels which resembledgalleons—and more specifically, theVasa, a massive Swedishwarship which sank in Stockholm's harbor upon its maiden voyage in 1628 (the ship was salvaged in 1961 and housed in a special museum in the Swedish capital). With its high, heavily ornamented stern, the ship provided a rich foundation for Rick Heinrichs' wilder and more fantastical designs.[23][24]
One of the stuntmen,Johnny Depp's stunt double Tony Angelotti, was injured on set while filming a "human yo-yo" stunt in July 2005. He was rushed to hospital, suffering internal bleeding after "nicking" a branch off his femoral artery. He lost six units of blood, had an ACL reconstruction and spent a year in recovery, before having to have the surgery all over again when a plate in his pelvis broke. He also suffered from PTSD. Despite this, he did continue filming for the following sequel,At World's End, albeit doing "lighter stunts" like sword choreography or working as a stunt coordinator. However, in 2007, Tony Angelotti did sue Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer for the injury.[25][26]
The three stages of rendering Bill Nighy's character.
TheFlying Dutchman's crew members were originally conceived by writersTed Elliott andTerry Rossio as ghosts, butGore Verbinski disliked this and designed them as physical creatures.[27] Their hierarchy is reflected by how mutated they were: newcomers had low level infections which resemblerosacea, while veterans had full-blown undersea creature attributes. Verbinski wanted to keep them realistic, rejecting a character with a turtle shell, and the animators watched variousDavid Attenborough documentaries to study the movement ofsea anemones and mussels.[28] All of the crew arecomputer-generated, with the exception ofStellan Skarsgård, who played"Bootstrap" Bill Turner. Initially his prosthetics would be augmented with CGI but that was abandoned.[29] Skarsgård spent four hours in the make-up chair and was dubbed "Bouillabaisse" on set.[30]
Davy Jones had originally been designed with chin growths, before the designers made the move to full-blowntentacles;[31] the skin of the character incorporates the texture of a coffee-stained Styrofoam cup among other elements. To portray Jones on set,Bill Nighy wore amotion capture tracksuit that meant the animators atIndustrial Light & Magic did not have to reshoot the scene in the studio without him or on the motion capture stage. Nighy wore make-up around his eyes and mouth to splice into the computer-generated shots, but the images of his eyes and mouth were not used. Nighy only wore a prosthetic once, with blue-colored tentacles for whenWill Turner (Orlando Bloom) steals the key to the Dead Man's Chest from under his "beard" as he sleeps. To create the CGI version of the character, the model was closely based on a full-body scan of Nighy, with Jones reflecting his high cheekbones. Animators studied every frame of Nighy's performance: the actor himself had blessed them by making his performance more quirky than expected, providing endless fun for them. His performance also meant new controls had to be stored. Finally, Jones' tentacles are mostly a simulation, though at times they were hand-animated when they act as limbs for the character.[32]
TheKraken was difficult to animate as it had no real-life reference, until animation director Hal Hickel instructed the crew to watchKing Kong vs. Godzilla which featured a live octopus crawling over miniatures.[33]: 2 On the set, two pipes filled with 30,000 pounds (14,000 kg) of cement were used to crash and split theEdinburgh Trader: Completing the illusion are miniature masts and falling stuntmen shot on abluescreen stage. The scene where the Kraken spits atJack Sparrow does not use computer-generated spit: it was real slime thrown at Depp.[34]
The first trailer was attached toThe Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Disney produced a comic book adaption in their Junior Graphic Novels:Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2007).[35][36] Disney sponsored a racing yacht in the2005 event[37] of theVolvo Ocean Race. The boat, aptly namedBlack Pearl, raced under the team name "Pirates of the Caribbean" for the United States. The boat itself was aVolvo Open 70 class yacht designed byFarr Yacht Design. She was skippered to a 2nd-place finish by AmericanPaul Cayard after 31,000nm (57,000 km), divided into 9 legs, taking 8 months to complete.
Johnny Depp at the London premiere for the film in June 2006
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chestpremiered atDisneyland in California on June 24, 2006.[38] It was the first Disney film to use the computer-generatedWalt Disney Pictureslogo from 2006 to 2022, which took a year for the studio to design.[39]Wētā FX and yU+co were responsible for the logo's final animated rendering andMark Mancina was hired to score a new composition and arrangement of "When You Wish Upon a Star".[39] The new fanfare was co-arranged and orchestrated byDavid Metzger. The main people responsible for the logo's rendering are Cyrese Parrish and Cameron Smith.
The film became available onDVD on November 20, 2006, in the UK and December 5, 2006, in the US. It sold 9,498,304 units in its first week of sales (equivalent to $174,039,324). In total it sold 16,694,937 units, earning $320,871,909. It was the best-selling DVD of 2006 in terms of units sold and second in terms of sales revenue behindThe Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.[40]
The DVD contained acommentary track with the screenwriters and agag reel, with the double-disc featuring a video of the film premiere and a number of documentaries, including a full-length documentary entitled "According to the Plan" and eight featurettes. The film was released onBlu-ray Disc on May 22, 2007.[41] The film had its UK Television premiere onBoxing Day 2008 onBBC One at 20:30. It was seen by 6.8 million viewers according to overnight figures.[42]
Dead Man's Chest earned $423,315,812 in North America and $642,863,913 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1,066,179,725.[2] Worldwide, it ranks as the 15th highest-grossing film distributed byDisney,[43] thehighest-grossing film of 2006, and the highest-grossing film in thePirates of the Caribbean series.[44] It was the third film in history to reach the $1 billion mark worldwide and the first Disney film to reach $1 billion worldwide, and it reached the mark in record time (63 days),[45] a record that has since been surpassed by many films, of which the first wasAvatar (in January 2010).[46]
In North America, the film broke many records including the largest opening- and single-day gross ($55.8 million), the biggest opening-weekend gross ($135.6 million),[47] the least time to reach $100,[47] $200 and $300 million[48] and the highest ten-day gross, dethroningSpider-Man, which held those records in 2002.[49] However, most of them were broken bySpider-Man 3 in May 2007[50] andThe Dark Knight in July 2008. The film was in first place at the box office for three consecutive weekends,[51] making it one of the only two films of the year to achieve this feat, with the other beingHappy Feet.[52] By late August 2006, it would go on to breakFinding Nemo's record for becoming Disney's highest-grossing film at the time.[53] It closed in theaters on December 7, 2006, with a $423.3 million haul.[54] Thus, in North America, it is theseventeenth-highest-grossing film, although, adjusted for inflation, the film ranksforty-eight. It is also the highest-grossing 2006 film,[55] the highest-grossingPirates of the Caribbean film,[44] and the seventh-highest-grossing Disney film.[56] The film sold an estimated 64,628,400 tickets in the US.[57]
Outside North America, it is the twenty-first-highest-grossing film,[58] the third-highest-grossingPirates film, the eighth-highest-grossing Disney film[59] and the highest-grossing film of 2006.[60] It set opening-weekend records in Russia and the CIS, Ukraine, Finland, Malaysia, Singapore,[61] Greece[62] and Italy.[63][64] It was on top of the box office outside North America for 9 consecutive weekends and 10 in total.[65] It was the highest-grossing film of 2006 in Australia,[66] Bulgaria,[67] Germany,[68] Japan,[69] the Netherlands,[70] New Zealand,[71] Spain,[72] Sweden[73] and Thailand.[74]
OnRotten Tomatoes,Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has an approval rating of 53% based on 229 reviews, with an average rating of 6.00/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Gone is Depp's unpredictability and much of the humor and originality of the first movie."[75] AtMetacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews, the film received an average score of 53 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed to average reviews".[76] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[77]
Michael Booth ofThe Denver Post gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it "two hours and 20 minutes of escapism that once again makes the movies safe for guilt-free fun."[78] Drew McWeeny compared the film toThe Empire Strikes Back, and also acclaimed its darkness in its depiction of the crew of theFlying Dutchman and its cliffhanger.[79] The completelycomputer-generated Davy Jones turned out to be so realistic that some reviewers mistakenly identified Nighy as wearingprosthetic makeup.[80][81]
A. O. Scott ofThe New York Times said, "You put down your money – still less than $10 in most cities – and in return you get two and a half hours of spirited swashbuckling, and Gore Verbinski has an appropriate sense of mischief, as a well as a gift, nearly equaling those ofPeter Jackson andSteven Spielberg, for integrating CGI seamlessly into his cinematic compositions."[82]Empire gave the film three out of five stars, stating, "Depp is once again an unmitigated joy as Captain Sparrow, delivering another eye-darting, word-slurring turn with some wonderful slapstick flourishes. Indeed, Rossio and Elliot smartly exploit these in some wonderful action set-pieces." "We don't get the predictable 'all friends together on the same quest' structure, and there's a surfeit of surprises, crosses and double-crosses and cheeky character beats which stay true to the original's anti-heroic sense of fun. After all, Jack Sparrow is a pirate, a bad guy in a hero's hat, a man driven by self-gain over concern for the greater good, who will run away from a fight and cheat his 'friends' without a second's thought."[83]
Paul Arendt of theBBC compared it toThe Matrix Reloaded, as a complex film that merely led onto the next film.[84] Richard George felt a "better construct ofDead Man's Chest andAt World's End would have been to take 90 minutes ofChest, mix it with all ofEnd and then cut that film in two."[85] Alex Billington felt the third film "almost makes the second film in the series obsolete or dulls it down enough that we can accept it in our trilogy DVD collections without ever watching it."[86]Mark Kermode ofThe Observer accused the film of "lumpen direction, lousy writing and pouting performances", but wrote that "the worst thing aboutDead Man's Chest is its interminable length [...] The entirePirates of the Caribbean franchise may be a horrible indicator of the decline of narrative cinema."[87]
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