It has been a few years since the last Pirates of the Caribbean sailed into theaters, pushing on without mainstay staples Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom but expanding its cast to surround Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow with new co-stars for wild adventures. There has been rampant speculation about a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and even a possible spinoff from the main franchise to reboot stories with Margot Robbie in the lead (somehow). You can watch all of the previous Pirates movies with your Disney+ subscription, and be sure that all of the previous films – as well as any potential ones in the Disney production pipeline – were met with this one note from the studio, “Make this shorter.”
Director Gore Verbinski poured his heart, soul, and imagination into his Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, but the first movie didn’t start out as a short. Even though Verbinski and his team were pulling inspiration from a theme park ride, the initial Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl clocked in at two hours and 23 minutes. Hefty, and they only got longer from there. The fourth movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, did reduce its run to two hours and 16 minutes, and that’s because of the note producer Jerry Bruckheimer received on all of the films. Bruckheimer told The Hollywood Reporter:
