Gore Verbinski tells how he turned Pirates of the Caribbean 3 without scenario

The story was written as the shots go … and the film had only 10 weeks of post-production!

On the occasion of the replay of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 On W9, return to its chaotic manufacture.

Article of March 17, 2021: In 2003, The Curse of the Black Pearl was a big surprise success for the leaders of the Disney studios, who did not frankly believe in this project of Gore Verbinski. If producer Jerry Bruckheimer has always supported the choice of Johnny Depp To play Jack Sparrow, this was not the case with other bosses, who were afraid of his interpretation. Not to mention that the recent pirate films had cost dearly and made flops … But $ 650 million in global revenue later, the team changed its rifle and claimed from the director and the star to turn no Not one, but two suites in stride: The secret of the cursed trunk (released in the summer of 2006) and To the end of the world (in theaters less than a year later, in May 2007). The latter was also partly staged during the shots of his predecessor, while his story, always imagined by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio was far from being finalized, as its director details today to Collider. Here are some extracts from this captivating interview, To read in full and in English here.

Pirates of the Caribbean: the good surprise of summer 2003 (critic)

The Director’s Cut

‘I consider that I had the director’s cut on this trilogy. The battles we had to lead on these films were minor and I am very happy with these films. (…) Following this success, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 were launched and were truly designed according to their deadlines. There was a very precise calendar to respect. ‘We need two of these babies, can you make them for when?’ We did not have a script, but we made the films to respect the release date. It is inevitable after such a box. They even brought the attraction into Disney parks! “

Cling the story

“You asked me if there was another montage of the films, but in fact, by creating them, we considered that succeeding in keeping your original madness, it would be sufficient. I am also very proud of the second. He is a Little more … It keeps the same spirit, but it is different. Just as it works, because we have finished the stories of everyone. . ‘was a fundamental point of the intrigue. (…) Then we wanted to explode everything, to really complete this story. I was making the third film by repeating that there should not be others. “

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Shoot two films at the same time

“They wanted the two suite as quickly as possible and when we shoot two films at the same time, we try to amortize the costs. For example, taking advantage of being in a certain place to film a few plans of the 3 . would need our tank (giant basin). Days of shots of the second film, without knowing the script of the third! But you know what? You embark on this chaos and make the decisions on a case -by -case basis.

(…)

Usually, we are preparing between 60% and 80% of filming days. By launching on these suites, we had advanced well on the 2nd film, we had about 80% of preparations, it was good. But for the 3rd, it was another story: there was nothing, no pages of validated scenario, just the main lines. It was all the time all the time: ‘We are about to leave the island, we need to film what for the pirates 3?’ So we came back to our notes: ‘We will certainly need a sequence between these two characters.’ ‘Ok, well we would better write it now, then.’

Talk to any director who has a hundred days of shooting, he will tell you that he had properly prepared the first 60s, and that there are around forty to manage over the filming. Otherwise, you never start! You remain forever in pre-production. It is a simple equation. (…) In short, when you have 300 days of shooting, which correspond to two movies in blow, you know that you are going to gallop. The team will ask you: ‘So what are we doing today?’ We go to sea, prepare your sandwiches. And once on the boat, a game begins to vomit your lunch, but you absolutely have to turn these four pages of script aboard the Pearl, so we advance. This team was the best in all of the business. “

Write the suite in full filming

“In fact, as we knew what would be waiting for us on Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, we had asked that the office of Ted (Elliott) and Terry (Rossio) be next to mine, like that we could discuss anyone As for the ‘Story Room’ while we spotted the filming places … The producers set up budgets when we did not yet have a scenario, so we had a card to play there. Two pieces were filled with photos of filming places, drawings, concept arts … I work on all my films, we design all this before the technicians start to build all these things. 2, I could enter the ‘piece of intrigue’ and talk about the overall construction of the film. We meet Davy Jones? And when will the Kraken take Jack? And our big action scene in the spinning water, we leave it at the heart of our third act? Once at the end of the world, how are they going to bring Jack back? And what do we do with Norrington? How do we re-know about our hero? Can we leave the Caribbean to go east? What if we explored the world of Asian pirates? We would like to have this kind of influence. And engaging Chow Yun-Fat, it would be really great. When can we start to fill the scriptwriting holes of the first film? We could explain why Jack has this P -shaped scar on the hand. Who did this to him? And who is Bill the Bottier? ‘ This is how we put forward on this trilogy. (…) We end up asking thousands of questions. Then a producer arrives and asks us, ‘Do you think that we must stay how long on island n ° 4?’ So with Terry and Ted we calculate: ‘there will be this scene of dialogues of two and a half pages, we will count half a day in addition as we will turn it on the water, and then there is this huge scene of Action to choreographed. In the script, we had written downright: ‘It is the biggest fight of swords between three fencers never filmed!’. We ended up planning 9 days of filming for 8 pages of scenario on the island in question. “

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Delays, imposed breaks and hurricane

“We were not supposed to have breaks during this long shoot, but we were forced to stop because our tank had a problem. He was not ready. We first tried to meet the deadlines by turning other scenes in place of those planned in the basin, while it was still under construction, but it became a big problem. So, we decided to stop and I did a little editing with what I had on hand. When coming back, he was still not ready, we decided to moor the boats next to a port and turn without the artificial basin. It asked us to modify our whole filming methodology, and that imposed a new deadline for us … until the hurricane season. We took one, which destroyed several sets. Second break, it was this delay that shortened our post-production from the third film at only ten weeks if we wanted to respect the date. Reporting the film has never been an option. Respecting the ‘deadline’ is the most important thing. The longer, the more you spend. She is also there to remind us that we must stop. ”

Only 10 weeks of post-production

“I completely agree with you (to say that the third opus is too long, Editor’s note). We were at the end of the roll, we only had ten weeks to do post-production! I was overweight , I no longer slept. At the same time, we made mixing, color, assembly, special effects … The usual things, except that there, we were exhausted because of this untenable post-Prod agenda. At night to edit when we had shot new scenes during the day! Tips in Los Angeles.

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