ROTTEN TOMATOES: "Dead Man's Chest" Hits $1 Billion

"Dead Man's Chest" Hits $1 Billion

by RT Staff | September 10, 2006

Avast ye, scurvy dogs of naysayers. Who says a film based largely on Johnny Depp in mascara and a bloke with an octopus for a face can't pillage the finest $1 billion in box office booty? "Dead Man's Chest" has joined the elite club of select films with the biggest piles of plunder this side of Halliburton.

From Variety: "It is mainly recent foreign biz that's pushed "Dead Man's Chest" over the 10-figure mark. The pic's remained dominant internationally with a nine-weekend winning streak and, as of Tuesday, had cumed around $583 million offshore."

The third installment, "Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End," hits theaters on May 25, 2007.' Click here to read the full story.

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(1-20 of 28 posts) | Reply

ajmueller writes:
on Sep 10 2006 03:24 AM

Whoopy...that movie didn't deserve to make over $200 million worldwide...such a disappointment. At World's End better not suck...

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jeremyd4 writes:
on Sep 10 2006 03:59 AM

[b]shut up[/b]

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cgcbooks writes:
on Sep 10 2006 06:52 AM

No film will ever pass Titanic!

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Zen Bullet writes:
on Sep 10 2006 07:57 AM

Pirates 2 had a large target audience, but the film was pretty inadequate from a story standpoint. I still believe that Ted and Terry's best actual script was for The Mask of Zorro, where I thought the drama, comedy, and over-the-top story scenarios were at just the right blend.

Pirates 2 had a lot of fun moments, with a great punch-line ending(which kept me entertained enough), but there were just so many other script issues: character development problems and unneeded fluff, that I have to side with the critics on this one. Even Pirates 1 was flawed, but not this badly.

Much of Pirates 2 owes its success to the splended production design, costume design, wild visual effects, and some bits of humor . . . because without them, this film wouldn't be very distinctive or potent. And yet it's just enough of an echo of the first(while pushing it's scope way further) to please most moviegoers.

Its success is probably a combination of it being pretty much the most consistently amusing and awe-inspiring entry this summer, while riding on the goodwill generated from the first film. But then again, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, The Matrix Reloaded, and X3 were successes(and Pirates 2 is nowhere near as dreadful as those) . . . but for people who equate earnings with good moviemaking, consider some of the past examples.

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02PARSIM writes:
on Sep 10 2006 08:26 AM

I can't see why people disliked Pirates 2 as much as they did. I was there the first day it was released and the audience I saw it with loved it, not a bad word was uttered about it. As soon as the critics got their say about it then everyone just suddenly seemed to hate the poor thing. It was a great laugh, had awesome action and Johnny Depp upping his performance from the original. Don't care what all the haters say about it, they obviously went with either too high expectations (in that case they really shouldn't try and get so excited, its just a movie after all) or they simply wanted to hate a movie that really is not hateful.

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synergyred writes:
on Sep 10 2006 09:25 AM

Wow! A Billion. Congrats Piraters!

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Infernal writes:
on Sep 10 2006 11:17 AM

Titanic was horrid. I'm happy for Dead Man's Chest, it was a fantastic movie with an amazing cast. I cannot wait for this third movie.

And 02PARSIM, they hated Dead Man's Chest because it's a sequel. These people always rag on sequels. And they criticize movies for not being 'accurate' and what the stories and the books say they should be. A bundle of idiocy, to judge films like that. I've met so many moronic people like that and it's really horrid.

And tell me, all you that criticize the movie. If it was so bad, how did it reach the one billion mark worldwide? I'll tell you why. Because many people went to see it again. And again. Stop being critics. The critics never speak for the public anymore.

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gradyboy37 writes:
on Sep 10 2006 12:23 PM

I don't know how many people here read Box Office Prophets, but they said it best when they said that Pirates 2's advertising campaign let shine the most important aspect in Summer box office - FUN! No one can deny that the Pirates 2 trailer simply sold, action, humor, and straight up fun to audiences. People go to the movies to have fun, and if you play up the careless-summer-joyous-magical-fun level in your advertising, people will come. Look at something like Superman- that movie had a rather dark, serious preview, and resulted in a disappointing box office. Spider-Man on the other hand had that fun, "Who am I? I'm Spider-Man!" and it made over twice as much. Or take the Mission Impossible movies for instance: MI2's previews had that popcorn-munching, heart racing, fun energy around it, and it did very well. Granted Tom Cruise definitely hurt MI3's total box office, but I think the fact that it was much darker and heavier probably subtracted a bit from its box office as well. I think if you let people know they will enjoy themselves by coming to the movies, they will listen. Just some thoughts.

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tanukizilla writes:
on Sep 10 2006 01:07 PM

YAY for Pirates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Zen Bullet writes:
on Sep 10 2006 06:46 PM

Those who say we "critics" read too much into movies aren't taking into account a simple aspect:

We value films based on how well they achieve their purpose. And I don't mean a purpose like the toss-off-term used around here so frequently: that "It's just popcorn fun".

The film "Speed" was popcorn entertainment . . . but it was also well-crafted. So was "Aliens". "The Terminator". "T2". "Spider-Man 2". "The Matrix". "Batman Begins". "Raiders of the Lost Arc", Jaws", "Lord of the Rings" and "E.T.". Or any Pixar movie pre-"Cars".

Pirates 2 was sloppily crafted, but managed enough entertainment value to attract large audiences for repeated attendance and solid word-of-mouth. Another example of this "sloppy-but-still-fun" club: Shrek and Shrek 2. But none of them are amazing films. The Star Wars prequels are much worse, even . . . but they played to wide attendance of course.

Just because you enjoy a film doesn't give you permission to simply call it "great" and then bash those who see fault with it. I certainly enjoy flawed films, including the Star Wars prequels once in a while . . . but I can still admit their considerable errors. And I'm not a snob-nosed critic either . . . my taste is for really well-crafted cinema, and that excludes a lot of arthouse fare as well.

So for those taking blatant emotional offense at us critics, maybe you can do better in investing some attention toward our opinions and the ideas that support them rather than turning a blind eye and making off-hand insults. Grow up.

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Sergeant Grimm writes:
on Sep 10 2006 07:26 PM

"Those who say we "critics" read too much into movies aren't taking into account a simple aspect:

We value films based on how well they achieve their purpose. And I don't mean a purpose like the toss-off-term used around here so frequently: that "It's just popcorn fun".

The film "Speed" was popcorn entertainment . . . but it was also well-crafted. So was "Aliens". "The Terminator". "T2". "Spider-Man 2". "The Matrix". "Batman Begins". "Raiders of the Lost Arc", Jaws", "Lord of the Rings" and "E.T.". Or any Pixar movie pre-"Cars".

Pirates 2 was sloppily crafted, but managed enough entertainment value to attract large audiences for repeated attendance and solid word-of-mouth. Another example of this "sloppy-but-still-fun" club: Shrek and Shrek 2. But none of them are amazing films. The Star Wars prequels are much worse, even . . . but they played to wide attendance of course.

Just because you enjoy a film doesn't give you permission to simply call it "great" and then bash those who see fault with it. I certainly enjoy flawed films, including the Star Wars prequels once in a while . . . but I can still admit their considerable errors. And I'm not a snob-nosed critic either . . . my taste is for really well-crafted cinema, and that excludes a lot of arthouse fare as well.

So for those taking blatant emotional offense at us critics, maybe you can do better in investing some attention toward our opinions and the ideas that support them rather than turning a blind eye and making off-hand insults. Grow up."

And your some hot shot movie critic....plz......just cause you post your thoughts on a forum or in a small city paper doesn't mean you can call yourself as one of them......

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Captain Future1 writes:
on Sep 10 2006 10:19 PM

looks like DMC has an outside chance of passing up Return of the King. Never thought that would happen

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aknddon3 writes:
on Sep 11 2006 02:18 AM

In reply to this comment (#843928)
[b]You need to grow up.[/b]
You are not a real critic, you are nothing, your opinion means nothing and so i have every right to consider you a joke. I probably own more DVDS than you, seen more movies than you, and know more about movies than you so i have the right to say that this is a solid movie. Go back to your basement and write in your little nerd blog about how you were made fun of.

To everyone else, screw the critics they are nothing but a bunch of losers. Remember the old quote, "Those that are not artistic become critics." There opinions are their opinions so they mean nothing, they are not fact and the only persons opinion that matters is yours. Critics loved Superman Returns yet they were too blind to see how bad a movie it was. Sorry but a Comic Book movie that does not include one single punch is a bad movie.

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South_park300 writes:
on Sep 11 2006 08:55 AM

some people spend WAY too much time in thier forum responses.
seems more people LOVED dead man's chest than disliked it. get over it.

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Crenshaw writes:
on Sep 11 2006 09:08 AM

ET got some pretty bad reviews when it first came out. So did Star Wars ("a mild diversion for the kids while you go see Annie Hall" or something like that). But time and a fanbase have given them "classic" status. I mean, c'mon, if you boil them down Star Wars is just a tired old fairytale story with spaceships, and ET was just another boy and his dog story. Not really groundbreaking, but enough to work on audiences.

Not every movie has to be important, it just has to be entertaining. Mission accomplished. Go suck on your sour grapes elsewhere if you can't get it through your skulls that the only way Pirates 2 could have reached a billion is because a LOT of people all over the world went to see it more than one time. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a big bucket of pure popcorn, as long as the popcorn is tasty enough that you want a second helping. Pirates achived that. Deal with it. It isn't Schindlers List, and it was never supposed to be. It's not and never will be Best Picture, and was never trying to be.

There were two types of reviews of Pirates 2, and they were the essentially the same argument. The bad reviews said, "Eh, it's just more of the same." The good reviews said, "Yay! It's more of the same!" Well, the box office is the final judge, and it has judged that "More of the same" is exactly what audiences wanted. So just prepare yourselves for Pirates 3, because it will also be more of the same. And I for one can't wait.

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Zen Bullet writes:
on Sep 11 2006 01:15 PM

For all the bickering around here, nobody seems to actually read what I post.

I for one enjoy being entertained by movies. Duh.

But I also find it worthwhile to acknowledge that people have a different threshold for tolerating(or even noticing) a film's problems. an aquaintance of mine couldn't deal with the fake-looking creature in the movie Alien . . . which kills the impact of the film for him. Now we all could laugh, but at the same time, I think it's worth noticing how we all come to the movies with different tolerances and biases. Some of us want to have a fun ride. Some want a great story. Some want some sort of emotional fulfillment. Others desire to learn something.

I am not usually bothered by poor visual effects, but I do take issue with meager storytelling as exhibited in films like Pirates 2 and X-men 3.

Plot and character-wise, the first Pirates was way better than the sequel. I've already written a laundry list of reasons elsewhere that nobody seemed to bother reading. On the other hand, the visual effects and production design were much stronger in the sequel. Also successful was much of the humor.

And for a large portion of the film's target audience, the strength and continuity of the plot and the characters didn't matter so much . . . hence the film's success.

But if you take an unbiased look at Pirates 2, and if you are well-versed in analyzing cinema, you'll notice problems with it that should have been fixed, that might have tipped it into "E.T." or "Indiana Jones" territory.

In a movie discussion forum I thought film-DISCUSSION was the order of the day. Somehow, despite my efforts, it keeps digressing into a "my thingy is bigger than your thingy" contest based purely on intolerance. Now if you don't care for my(or some other individual's) analysis, then feel free not to participate. But trying to ignite a bickering contest is really immature, and all too frequent on this site. There's no call for it, whether you're in support of a film or not.

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knowingtoast85 writes:
on Sep 11 2006 05:32 PM

I look forward to aknddon3's next post regarding basements.

"Pirates" didn't hold anybody at gunpoint to go see the movie, by the way. We all threw money down for a sequel that came in, upped the ante on the special effects, changed little else, and set everyone up for a third installment. Was anyone expecting a b***job in addition?

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brave.sir.rob writes:
on Sep 11 2006 08:10 PM

In reply to this comment (#843934)
My man, I don't disagree on any particular point... but evidently you forget who it was that used the phrase "Grow up" before any of this bickering had started. Admit it: you tossed that in just to pick a fight and then play the holier-than-thou card when somebody took the bait. Admit it! Cancer merchant!

(Reply to this)

brave.sir.rob writes:
on Sep 11 2006 08:12 PM

And how do you take "blatant emotional offense?" What does that even mean? It has lots of syllables, though, so that's mighty impressive. Killer boots, man!

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saiga6360 writes:
on Sep 12 2006 04:23 PM

All these 'problems' will be fixed in the 3rd movie, as it is obviously meant to be.

(Reply to this)

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