The fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie On Stranger Tides was a hit with audiences but flopped with reviewers, but a look over the movie’s original plans proves that director Rob Marshall’s swashbuckling adventure almost looked very different. Released in 2003, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a surprise sleeper hit for The Ring helmer Gore Verbinski.
With an impressive cast including rising stars Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightley as well as established screen veteran Geoffrey Rush, hopes were high for the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie to break even at the box office, but the failure of 1995’s historic flop Cutthroat Island meant few industry insiders expected the movie to be a huge hit. However, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl had a secret weapon in the form of Johnny Depp’s charismatic scene-stealer Jack Sparrow, a roguish antihero who proved to be the movie’s breakout character.
After the success of the first film in the franchise, Verbinski returned to the director’s chair to helm a pair of back-to-back sequels in the form of 2006’s Dead Man’s Chest and 2007’s At World’s End. Seemingly inspired by the then-recent success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Verbinski’s sequels told a complex, overarching story with tragic elements and much double-crossing, but the inconsistent tone of these Pirates of the Caribbean sequels saw them earn less impressive reviews than the original outing. Verbinski never returned to the franchise, but in his absence, a Jack Sparrow-centric fourth film was made and released in 2011. On Stranger Tides was directed by Chicago helmer Rob Marshall, and the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie proved to be divisive, to say the least. At once both one of the franchise’s worst-reviewed and also its most financially successful installment, the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean had a rocky journey wherein a lot changed between script and screen for the troubled movie.
Gore Verbinski’s POTC: On Stranger Tides
Perhaps annoyed that viewers and reviewers alike wanted more Jack Sparrow antics and had not appreciated the poignant tragedy of his sequels, Tia Dalma rather than beginning anew as his replacement chose to.
Pintel and Ragetti’s Missing Cameo Roles
Although future Into The Woods director Rob Marshall claimed that dropping the cast of characters seen in the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films and beginning anew was central to the appeal of making On Stranger Tides, this approach did not apply for all of the original characters in the first three films. Although the script for On Stranger Tides ignored the existence of central original trilogy characters Elizabeth Swan and Will Turner, screenwriter Terry Rossio said he originally wrote a cameo for the original trilogy’s comic relief duo, Pintel and Ragetti. However, the pair's scene was never filmed as the director feared it would only end up on the cutting room floor. Marshall wanted to avoid adding any additional scenes to the movie’s ballooning budget, not to mention further characters being added to a movie that already aimed to introduce Ian McShane’s Blackbeard and Penelope Cruz’s duplicitous love interest among others.
However, the choice to cut the cameo did not come easily to the filmmakers. Per Rossio himself: ”In the end, Rob Marshall was unsure that their subplot would survive the requirements of story clarity and a reasonable running time; it would be a tragedy to have their tale truncated or end up on the cutting room floor. One of the toughest decisions on the production, but the choice was made to wait.” Unfortunately, the next movie did not feature the pair either, and the fact that the Pirates of the Caribbean project starring Margot Robbie is a reboot rather than a spin-off means viewers are unlikely to see them again.
The Missing Nod To POTC’s Original Ride
A scene depicting the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride’s iconic character Old Bill, who is seen trying to feed his pet cat some of his rum, was filmed but never made it into the movie. It is a minor touch, but nonetheless a shame that the moment did not make it into the finished film. Marshall came up with the idea after researching the ride, and its elision from On Stranger Tides is a small, but telling reminder of how much the director’s vision was compromised by tight shooting schedules, rush edits, and a swelling budget.
Mick Jagger’s Missing Cameo
Although Johnny Depp and his onscreen father Keith Richards attempted to talk the Rolling Stones’ frontman into a cameo, Mick Jagger, unfortunately, couldn’t be swayed to appear in On Stranger Tides. The rock legend would reportedly have played a pirate elder, but despite Depp’s attempts to convince him to audition (mentioned in a DailyExpress article at the time of production), the cameo was not meant to be. Interestingly, Paul McCartney did show up in the sequel as Jack’s uncle, another pirate also named Jack.
The Missing Mutiny Scene
A simple scene where Jack starts a round-robin suggesting mutiny, only for the suggestion to eventually reach him again after a long circuit around the crew , was cut for time and is another example of places where Marshall’s movie understood the loose, breezy humor of the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie but had to cut clever moments in favor of prioritizing big set pieces. Despite the movie’s compressed shooting schedule meaning few sequences were cut from the finished film, almost all of the moments missing from On Stranger Tides are the fun, inventive touches that made Pirates of the Caribbean a hit in the first place, which may explain why the blockbuster was considered too soulless to be memorable in its finished form.
