Creating the story
The script or, rather, the draft of “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl”, starts in the 90s. The screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were inspired by literary and cinematographic works such as ‘Treasure Island’ or ‘The Crimson Pirate’, besides from the novel ‘On Stranger Tides’, the videogame ‘The Secret of Monkey Island’ and of course in the attraction of Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland created in 1967.
Names with meaning
The names of the main characters are inspired by the field of ornithology: ‘Sparrow’ is a type of bird, ‘Swann’ without an ‘n’ at the end is a type of duck, Will Turner is the name of a prestigious ornithologist, and ‘Barbossa’ is the adaption of the name ‘Red Beard’.
Jack the monkey
Do you remember Jack? Not captain Jack Sparrow, the other Jack, Barbossa’s monkey. Well, this character was interpreted by two capuchin monkeys, one female and one male, the most outstanding characteristic of these beings is that their face is white, however, for the movie, they had to darken them to give them a more malicious aspect. For that, they resorted to a non-toxic vegetable dye to avoid causing any damage to the monkeys.
A multitasking ship
A pirate movie would be nothing without its ships. Well, for the movie, none of them were real, the ‘Black Pearl’ was never built, they used models and decorations. But there was one that was real, and it was the ‘Interceptor’. Its real name is ‘Lady Washington’ and it already appeared on screen in “Star Trek: Generations” (1994) and also as the ‘Jolly Roger’ in the show “Once Upon a Time”.
Hans Zimmer? Not quite
The first person that they though of to put the soundtrack was Alan Silvestri, but he had to abandon the project so they hired Hans Zimmer’s apt pupil, Klaus Badelt. Despite his great and brilliant work, they decided to do without him in the next releases, being replaced by his master, Hans Zimmer, who never stopped following his student’s steps.
Contact lenses for the captains
During filming, Johnny Depp used some special solar lenses that had the same function as sunglasses. Another one who wore contact lenses was Geoffrey Rush, which, unlike Johnny’s, the function of these was to give his eyes a sickly appearance.
Johnny had a great reference to create captain Jack Sparrow
Keith Richards, guitar player of “The Rolling Stones”, was the figure in which he was inspired to interpret Jack Sparrow.
Teague Sparrow
Johnny took care of convincing Keith Richards to be Jack Sparrow’s father in “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”.
A pistol for 7.000 dollars
To recreate the environment that “Pirates of the Caribbean” required, firearms and swords were acquired in London, of which most are original pieces. But for Jack Sparrow’s weapon, 7 thousand dollars were spent in the captain’s pistol.
The treasure cave
In Isla de Muerta, where Barbossa and his crew’s Aztec gold was found, a huge set was built in the Disney studios. 100 people participated and it took them about 5 months to build it. Once the studios were converted into the cave, they filled it with one million liters of water, this took between 3 and 4 days. For the treasure they used gold painted rocks to give the sensation of being gold, pearls and jewelry. However, for the famous Aztec gold coin, they turned to a company in New Orleans to make it.
Do you know any other interesting facts? Tell us in the comments.