14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier reports had it that Disney had come up with a strategy to cut production costs and the budget for the upcoming installment in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, “On Stranger Tides.” Seemingly, another way of maximizing profit has been found, as the studio has just confirmed the fourth film will be shot in 3D, Deadline Hollywood informs.
Much has been said about the many movies that are now being shot in or converted (in post-production) to 3D, including that this has now become a movie studio’s way of charging moviegoers more even though there is little difference between the film in traditional 2D and 3D (and recent examples of those are not few, unfortunately). In a context in which Disney is struggling to keep the budget for the fourth film down to a minimum, it’s only understandable why it has also decided to increase its chances of being a box office hit upon release by making it in the 3D format.
“Disney Studios Chairman Rich Ross has just finalized the decision to shoot Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 in Disney Digital 3D. Its release date stays the same: May 20, 2011,” Deadline writes. Of course, one may think that a franchise as successful as “Pirates” doesn’t need this artifice for a boost in profit but, in all fairness, things have chanced a lot since the third installment came out. For starters, the cast has been reduced, as Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley have left the franchise. Secondly, the third film was too expensive for the kind of money it brought in, while also somewhat a critical disappointment, compared to the other two films before it.
As we were also telling you a short while ago, Disney is trying to take all the necessary measures to maximize profit for the film. In these dire financial times, the studio is looking for an absolute hit and is not to settle for less. Cost-cutting measures include fewer scenes at sea and more on land, and settling for locations that only look exotic but are not the real deal. Similarly, there will be fewer action scenes that employ special effects, which will, of course, affect the storyline, industry insiders claim.
“It’s all part of a scaling back, under Disney’s new chairman Rich Ross, designed to protect that all important bottom line. The LA Times blames increasing marketing costs and deteriorating DVD revenues. Ross ‘wants to be mean and lean and cost effective,’ says producer Jerry Bruckheimer. “This has meant screenwriters Ted Eliott and Terry Rossio facing the dictat to keep Johnny Depp and co on land as much as possible. Filming is taking place in Hawaii and London (rather than LA and the Caribbean) for the tax incentives. The shoot will be fifty days shorter than At Worlds End, and there will be several hundred fewer FX shots. The script has lost an expensive scene on a frozen river Thames, and a chase through the streets of London has had its schedule cut from a fortnight to under a week,” Empire reported a while back.