Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a 2011 American fantasy swashbuckler film, the fourth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series and a standalone sequel to At World’s End (2007). It is the first film in the series not to be directed by Gore Verbinski, replaced by Rob Marshall. Jerry Bruckheimer again served as producer. In the film, which draws its plot loosely from the 1987 novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, the eccentric pirate Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is forced into a shaky alliance with Angelica (Penélope Cruz), a mysterious woman from his past, as they embark on a quest for the Fountain of Youth, confronting the infamous pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and outrunning Jack’s old foe Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). The film was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It was the first film in the series to be released in the Disney Digital 3-D and IMAX 3D formats.
Writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio first learned of Powers’s novel On Stranger Tides during the back-to-back production of Dead Man’s Chest (2006) and At World’s End, and considered it a good starting point for a new film in the series. Pre-production started after the end of the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, with Depp collaborating with the writers on the story design. Principal photography lasted for 106 days between June and November 2010, with locations in Hawaii, the United Kingdom, Puerto Rico and California. Filming employed 3D cameras similar to those used in the production of the 2009 film Avatar, and ten companies were involved with the film’s visual effects. Following inflated production costs which ballooned the net budget to $379 million, the film currently ranks as the most expensive film ever made.
On Stranger Tides was released in the United States on May 20, 2011. The film broke many box office records and was the third highest-grossing film of 2011. A fifth film, titled Dead Men Tell No Tales, was released in May 2017, and a sixth film is in development.
