Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is the fourth film in the series and the first one that feels like it was made because a release date existed, not because anyone had a story. Rob Marshall took over directing from Gore Verbinski. Johnny Depp returned as Jack Sparrow. Penélope Cruz and Ian McShane joined. The result runs 136 minutes and ends with a franchise that had already spent its best ideas.
Trailer, via Walt Disney Studios, Ireland.
A Castaway at Cádiz Carrying a Logbook
The plot starts around 1750, some 21 years after Jack acquired Sao Feng’s map to the Fountain of Youth. A castaway is brought to King Ferdinand at Cádiz carrying the logbook of Ponce de León, who died 200 years earlier searching for the Fountain. Jack rescues Joshamee Gibbs from execution in London and is captured himself. King George II wants Jack to guide an expedition to the Fountain before the Spanish Navy, led by The Spaniard. Barbossa joins that expedition as a privateer, wearing a peg leg he lost along with the Black Pearl, which is believed sunk.
That is four factions and a map before the first swordfight. Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott wrote the script, loosely based on Tim Powers’ 1987 novel On Stranger Tides. The novel is a strange, haunted book about Blackbeard and the Fountain. The film takes the title and the premise and leaves the rest.
Angelica, Blackbeard, and the Queen Anne’s Revenge
Jack is shanghaied aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge. The impostor recruiting under his name is Angelica, his former lover and Blackbeard’s daughter, who practices voodoo as a brujo. Blackbeard wants the Fountain because of a prophesied death by a one-legged man. The crew includes Philip, a captured missionary, and zombie officers.
Jack incites the human crew to mutiny. Blackbeard subdues them with a sword that lets him control ships at sea. That is the film’s single best invention, and it arrives and departs in about ninety seconds.
A Ritual That Needs Two Chalices
Captain Teague, Jack’s father, tells him the Profane Ritual is required. Angelica explains the rest: the ritual needs water from the Fountain, a mermaid’s tear, and two silver chalices from Ponce de León’s ship, the Santiago. Both chalices are drunk. The person who drinks the water with the tear gets all the years.
So the quest is a fetch list. Water, tear, two cups. The film treats this as momentum. It plays as errands.
Depp at $55.5 Million, Cruz Pregnant on Set
Depp signed on in September 2008 and said he would return if the script was good. Almost a year later, Disney announced he would be paid $55.5 million, on the reasoning that without him the franchise would be “dead and buried.” That number is the most honest thing about this production. It says the film exists to keep an asset employed.
Cruz found out she was pregnant with her first child, a son with Javier Bardem, as the production date neared. Marshall and producer Jerry Bruckheimer worried she might back out. She stayed. The schedule was adjusted to shoot her scenes before she started to show. The costume designer created an elastic corset, and Cruz’s outfits were altered constantly.
“I just had a new fitting every three weeks,” Cruz said. “We kept having fittings, but they were very, very kind to do it.”
She did her close-up action scenes; a stunt double covered more of the wide shots. In September 2010, after it became noticeable on set in Puerto Rico, representatives for Cruz and Bardem confirmed she was four-and-a-half months pregnant. After that her sister Mónica shot Angelica’s long-distance work.
Geoffrey Rush and the Blue Sock
Rush wanted Barbossa to lose the leg. He thought the disability made the character “angrier, more forceful and resilient,” and worked with the stunt team on the limp and the crutch, especially in sword fights. The production considered a prop pegleg over Rush’s leg. The tight schedule killed it. They used a blue sock, replaced digitally, with a knob on the shoe so Rush had a reference for his walk.
That is the whole movie in one anecdote. A good instinct, a practical compromise, a digital fix, and a sock.
106 Days, Four Locations, No Verbinski
Principal photography ran 106 days between June and November 2010 in Hawaii, the United Kingdom, Puerto Rico and California. Verbinski did not return, reportedly because of his commitment to Rango. Pre-production began after the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike ended, with Depp collaborating with the writers on story design.
Elliott and Rossio first learned of Powers’ novel during the back-to-back production of Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End and considered it a good starting point. It was a starting point. They never arrived anywhere.
The Numbers Behind the Fourth Film
- Release year: 2011
- Runtime: 136 minutes
- Director: Rob Marshall
- Writers: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
- Based on: On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers (1987)
- Depp’s reported fee: $55.5 million
- Principal photography: 106 days, June–November 2010
- Locations: Hawaii, United Kingdom, Puerto Rico, California
- Score: 4.5 of 10
| Stage | Window |
|---|---|
| Depp signs on | September 2008 |
| Fee reported | ~mid-2009 |
| Pre-production | After the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike |
| Principal photography | June–November 2010 |
| Cruz pregnancy confirmed | September 2010 |
| Release | 2011 |
What the Fourth Film Actually Costs
On Stranger Tides is not unwatchable. McShane gives Blackbeard a low, amused menace that the script does not deserve. Cruz is game, and the production’s accommodation of her pregnancy is a genuine piece of craft. The mermaid Syrena, played by Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, and the missionary Philip, played by Sam Claflin, are the only two characters with anything like a stake.
But the film has no antagonist worth the runtime. Blackbeard’s prophecy is a deadline, not a character. Barbossa’s peg leg is backstory delivered as a costume note. The Fountain ritual is a set of instructions, and instructions are not drama. The first film worked because the curse had a rule and the rule had a cost. This one has a rule and a shopping list.
The $55.5 million fee is the tell. A franchise that pays that to keep its star is not asking what the star should do. It is asking how to keep him on screen. That is how you get a fourth installment that moves through Hawaii, the UK, Puerto Rico and California without ever finding a reason to be anywhere.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
