He's baaaaaacccck. That's right, everyone, Johnny Depp is reprising his role as Cap'n Jack Sparrow in the 4th installment of the Pirates franchise.
In this week's The Hollywood Reporter, there was a whole spread about the development process, interviews with the actors and production team, and notes about the Black Carpet (!!!) premiere.
For the premiere, the team transformed Disneyland into a haven for Pirate wannabes. This has been a veritable tradition in the past, with all previous Pirates movies having their premieres at Disneyland also. They rolled out a black carpet (still !!!ing about this. So cool.) and the cast and crew came parading down it on May 7th (no, nobody was walking tipsy a la Jack Sparrow because Disneyland is a strict no-alcohol zone. Even for premieres.)
This movie has been long in the making. It started pre-Writers strike, was delayed by the writer's strike, and then resumed in mid-2008. About 2 years later, a screenplay was had. Between January 2010 and release date of May 2011, Bruckheimer and his team would travel around the world with their very fancy, very expensive, and very fragile 3D cameras. Shooting finally finished in November 2010. Finally after much post-production modifications, the film was ready for its release!
Disney hopes to make some big bucks with this film--the Pirates franchise is actually in very good standing for becoming the top-grossing set of first 4 installments. To give you an idea of how other collections fared at the box office:
- Star Wars - 2.83 billon
- Indiana Jones - 1.98 billion
- Die hard - 1.13 billion
- Harry Potter - 3.55 billion
From the first three films, Pirates has 2.7 billion. Between 'Arry Pottah and Cap'n Jack Sparrow, I would much rather see the latter win.
The magazine also featured some interesting comments made by various individuals involved in the film-making process (these first-hand quotations are my favorite part about this magazine!). Below, I've transcribed a few:
Writer Terry Rossio describes Depp's involvement in the film. "We worked very closely with him on the story design," Rossio adds. "We'd have late dinners where the wine and the ideas flowed freely."
-Depp regularly devotes himself to the creative process. In the film Alice in Wonderland, Depp worked very closely with Tim Burton in creating the role of the Mad Hatter. He even drew some character sketches for the character! Isn't that cool?
Marketer MT Carney describes the basic motivation for making this film. "We wanted to remind people of why they fell in love with Jack Sparrow in the first place and also introduce new elements in a way that was elegant," says Carney.
Just saying, but I'm pretty sure I don't *need* to be reminded about why Jack Sparrow is my hero. However, I wouldn't *mind* to be reminded of why...and that's my main reason for seeing the film when it comes out.
Carney continues to describe the difficulties of making the new Pirates installment fresh and appealing to audiences. "When we only focused on the new elements and minimized Jack Sparrow, that didn't work; there needed to be a solid amount of him," Carney says. "And when we made it more serious, that didn't work so well, either. People wanted a fun adventure."
That's right, screw fancy plot lines and continuity with whatever-the-heck happened in the previous films (Who remembers anyway? It's been four years!). I want this movie to be a Jack Sparrow extravaganza.
Director Rob Marshall (you can read his interview here) talks about his and Depp's love of old cinema. "We felt, from our first meeting, exactly the same way: We were born in the wrong time," Marshall says. "I should have been working in the 1940s in the Arthur Freed [musical unit at MGM], and Johnny would have loved to be in the 1930s or '40s. He loves Hollywood lore."
If you ever read this, Johnny, you love 1930s/40s films, and I love 40s/50s films. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
In a separate interview, Depp answers questions about whether a 5th Pirates film is in the near future. "I've seen nothing yet. It boils down to story, script and filmmaker. But it's not something where I would say, 'Let's shoot it next month to get it out by Christmas 2012.' We should hold off for a bit. They should be special, just like they're special to me."
:)
