When "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" debuted in May 2007, many critics derided the third installment in the Disney franchise, calling its plot incomprehensible and 169-minute running time torturous. Newsweek prayed it was the final movie in the series; the New Yorker said a monkey delivered the best performance in the film; and Time suggested an alternative title for the picture: "Pirates of the Caribbean: At Wit's End."
Yet rather than sheath their swords, Johnny Depp and Co. restocked the eyeliner supply and relaced the corsets, signing on a little more than one year later for a fourth go-round. The copious haul of doubloons that Capt. Jack Sparrow pocketed worldwide suggested that with a little freshening of the franchise, audiences might be lured back aboard for yet another film.RELATED
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"Even though the reviewers weren't crazy about the third one, it did almost a billion dollars. That's a big movie," says "Pirates" producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who, along with Disney, a new director ("Chicago" helmer Rob Marshall) and a new supporting cast, including Penélope Cruz, will bring another adventure in the eye-patch saga to theaters this week. "If we do a little less [money] on the fourth one, we'd be happy."
The return of "Pirates of the Caribbean" on Friday (this one is titled "On Stranger Tides") is part of a major shift in Hollywood, with studios now routinely pursuing a fourth picture in a series, often after an extended layoff — or even a fifth, in the case of Universal's current hit "Fast Five."
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