14 DAY TRIAL // Disney is dreaming big: shooting for the fourth “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, “On Stranger Tides,” a wrap, the movie studio is looking into making the new film into a trilogy as well, it has emerged.
As fans must know, the first three “Pirates” films are seen as a whole, while the fourth marks a departure from tradition because it no longer features the same leading cast (except for Johnny Depp) and has a different director.
In this sense, “On Stranger Tides” itself is a risk Disney took, because it can’t possibly predict whether audiences will return to the cinema to see the film without Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley’s characters – let alone do so for 2 more films.
However, the studio is confident that they will. So much so that it’s already telling the members of the cast to start clearing their schedule to shoot the 5th and 6th film, HitFix reports.
As of now, nothing is official and it may be a while yet until Disney actually gets started on the two next installments. Nevertheless, the plan would be to shoot them back to back as one single movie – and then release it as two.
“HitFix can now exclusively report that Disney has begun quietly telling cast and crew to set aside a major block of time in the very near future so they can shoot ‘Pirates 5’ and ‘Pirates 6’,” the e-zine reports.
“And, yes, once again, they will be shooting them back-to-back as one giant film, and then they’ll release them as two films,” HitFix also notes.
The plan is bold to say the least. First off, there’s the above-mentioned question of whether people will be interested enough to return for two more “Pirates” movies, then there’s the question of the stars’ schedules. Depp, for one, has his plate full right now.
“Doing it once is risky, and that risk absolutely paid off for Disney in the long run. But ‘Pirates 4’ is already the single highest greenlight budget of all time, and it must look like the only sound way to get another trilogy out of the franchise, shooting two films together,” HitFix notes.
There are some advantages to shooting in Hawaii because it would allow Disney to work throughout the year – assuming Depp could take a year off from other projects to do another “Pirates” movie.
“Disney considers this one of their most important properties. I’m curious to see if they reach out to buy more material like the Tim Powers book that is the source material for ‘On Stranger Tides,’ or if they’re going to try to get Rossio and Elliott to build the next two chapters of the franchise from scratch,” HitFix also says.
Until an official announcement is made regarding this, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” arrives in theaters on May 20, 2011.