“You just embrace the chaos”: The Pirates of the Caribbean Movie That Didn’t Even Have a Finished Script, Gave us the Most Epic Climax in $4.5B Franchise History

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise can easily be called one of the most beloved and successful series of all time. The entire cast is full of massively talented actors, and every single aspect of the series is well thought-out, especially when it comes to the first three films.

Having been known as one of the best trilogies out there, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End are certainly regarded as the better parts of the series. This is especially true for the third film, as many fans adore the final sequence of the movie.

With this, many audiences would be surprised to know that when the 2007 film went into production, its script wasn’t even finished.

Two Films in Production at Once

When Disney was making The Pirates of the Caribbean, there was a common trend in Hollywood that it also ended up following. Many studios would greenlight multiple projects at once and make their films one after another to save on production costs and release films faster.

While it worked very well for some series, it did not have positive results for many. After the success of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the second and third films were put into production simultaneously.

Although this was excellent news for fans of the first film, it seemed to have been very stressful for the cast and crew. Gore Verbinski, who directed the three films, gave an interview with Express long after the release of the projects, where he revealed just how exhausting it was for him to make two big-scale projects at once.

A Lack of Sleep and Unfinished Scripts on the Set of The Pirates of the Caribbean

During the interview, Gore Verbinski revealed that the two films were given quite a lot of deadlines that were quite exhausting to meet. There was little to no sleep for those involved in the two films and the entire cast would work tirelessly to meet the standard the studio had set for them.

Oh yeah, no, I was 30 pounds overweight. Literally, there’s no sleep. Zero. I remember Dick Cook going: ‘Are we going to make the date? Can you make the date? Can you make the date?’

Verbinski framed the entire situation as a constant nightmare, having to deal with multiple very important processes all at once; something many directors would take step by step. Since two films were being made at once, there was a lot of back and forth between one that was in post-production and one that was still being filmed.

It’s just in reality… this is story telling not construction. And we were still making blueprints ‘ya know? We shot the end of Pirates 3 five days into shooting Pirates 2, because we were leaving that location.

Since locations were limited and there were many places the entire cast and crew had to travel to get the job done, scenes were not filmed in any semblance of order. Verbinski revealed that when the second film was still in production, a very important final sequence from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End was shot because they had to leave the location in a few days.

There’s one scene that had to be shot for the very end of Pirates 3 five days into 2, not knowing what the script of Pirates 3 was yet.

Interestingly enough, this was done after the script for the third film was not even complete. It is safe to assume that the entire filming and making process of the two films was extremely tedious. Despite this, they have been regarded as some of the best to come out of the franchise as a whole.