PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL JOHNNY DEPP

Pirates of the Caribbean was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and based on Walt Disney's theme park attraction of the same name. The film series serves as a major component of the eponymous media franchise.

Directors of the series include Gore Verbinski (films 1–3), Rob Marshall (4), Joachim Rønning (5–6), and Espen Sandberg (5). The series is primarily written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (1–4); other writers include Stuart Beattie (1), Jay Wolpert (1), Jeff Nathanson (5), Craig Mazin (6).

The stories follow the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). Characters such as Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and Joshamee Gibbs (Kevin McNally) follow Jack, Will and Elizabeth in the course of the films.

The films take place in a fictionalized historical setting; a world ruled by the British Empire, the East India Trading Company (based on the real East India Trading Company) and the Spanish Empire, with pirates representing freedom from the ruling powers.

The film series started in 2003 with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which received positive reviews from critics and grossed US$654 million worldwide.

Pirate or Pyrates? Today, the words "Pirate" or "Piracy" are spelled with an "I". In the Golden Age of Piracy, spelling was a haphazard kind of thing, and the word were often spelled with a "y". So there was a time when the word Pirate was spelled Pyrate, Pirate, Pyrat, or Pirat. I use pyrates, just for the whimsy and feel of it.

Piracy Any robbery or other violent action, for private ends and without authorization by public authority, committed on the seas or in the air outside the normal jurisdiction of any state. Because piracy has been regarded as an offense against the law of nations, the public vessels of any state have been permitted to seize a pirate ship, to bring it into port, to try the crew (regardless of their nationality or domicile), and, if found guilty, to punish them and to confiscate the ship.

A key point in the definition of piracy: according to international law, is that the act takes place outside the normal jurisdiction of a state, without state authority, and that the intent is private, not political. Thus, although acts of unlawful warfare, acts of insurgents and revolutionists, mutiny, and slave trading have been defined as piracy by national laws of various countries or by special treaties, they are not, in most cases, piracy by the law of nations.

Piracy has occurred in all stages of history. In the ancient Mediterranean, piracy was often closely related to maritime commerce, and the Phoenicians appear to have engaged in both, as did the Greeks, Romans, and Carthaginians. In the Middle Ages, Vikings from the north and Moors from the south also engaged in piracy. At the conclusion of European wars during the Renaissance and after, naval vessels would be laid up and their crews disbanded. From among these men, pirates recruited their crews. A common source of piracy, for instance, was the privateer, a privately owned and armed ship commissioned by a government to make reprisals, to gain reparation for specified offenses in time of peace, or to prey upon the enemy in time of war, with the right of the officers and crew to share in prize money from captured vessels. The temptation was great to continue this profitable business after the war without authorization. During the Elizabethan wars with Spain in the late 16th century, treasure-laden Spanish galleons proceeding from Mexico into the Caribbean were a natural target for privateers, and the line between privateering and piracy became difficult to draw.

From the 16th to the 18th century, after the weakening of Turkish rule had resulted in the virtual independence of the Barbary States of North Africa, piracy became common in the Mediterranean. Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli so tolerated or even organized piracy that they came to be called pirate states. In the early 19th century they were suppressed by successive actions of American, British, and French forces.

The increased size of merchant vessels, the improved naval patrolling of most ocean highways, the regular administration of most islands and land areas of the world, and the general recognition by governments of piracy as an international offense resulted in a great decline in piracy in the 19th and 20th centuries. Piracy has, however, occurred in the 20th century in the South China Sea, and the practice of hijacking ships or airplanes has developed into a new form of piracy. Much of the Piracy in the Caribbean may be related to drug smuggling. In the South China Seas, much of the piracy is typical of the piracy that has plagued the oceans since man first ventured off to sea.

Typically, armed thugs will try to sneak on board a ship and try and overcome the crew in an attempt to steal the cargo. Today, the sloop had been replaced by small motorboats. Often ships are attacked while docked and most of the crew is away. Typically the pirates of today are armed with axes and long knives. Occasionally some may have guns. They tend not to fight hard and prefer to flee if the crew manages to organize any kind of defense.

Johnny Depp has come a long way from 21 Jump Street - the US TV show which lumbered him with teen idol status. Since then he's worked with director Tim Burton on numerous occasions - their most recent collaboration being "Sleepy Hollow". Depp has also worked with oddball helmer Terry Gilliam for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", and famously dragged it up for "Ed Wood". It's all helped mould his quirky persona, as well as earning him a reputation as one of America's finest young character actors. While still demonstrating that offbeat air, swashbuckling adventure "Pirates of the Caribbean" is perhaps his most 'mainstream' film to date.

You based your character on Rolling Stone Keith Richards. Why's that?

I thought of Keith because he's a guy I've admired for many, many years. I didn't want to do an imitation of Keith, or a character study, just a kind of salute to him, you know, to show him I appreciate him. I was thinking about the pirates of the 18th century, about how they were the rocks stars of their day. So I thought: Who's the greatest rock and roll star who ever lived? And to me, it's Keith Richards hands down. Keith is a bit of a pirate himself!

What was it like to have Geoffrey Rush play your nemesis?

He was great fun. It's always a worry when you go into a film and you don't know someone. You worry that he won't have a sense of humour, that he'll be really intense about his work. But Geoffrey's nuts! He has a great sense of humour.

There's obviously a lot of swordplay in the movie. How tough was that to learn?

That was very intense, actually. Probably the most intense part of pre-production and the production itself was the sword fighting. We had these fantastic sword masters who took us through our moves and forced us to work. Which was a good thing, because losing a finger or losing an eye was always a possibility.

What about the gold teeth? You've still got them...

Well, there's a little gold and a little platinum. It didn't go over very well with the Disney executives actually. Initially, they were a little freaked out about it.