  Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
|
SANTA MONICA -- If you want to know the inside story on Pirates of the Caribbean, go ask a pirate ... if ye dare, mate!
So, swordless, feckless and a-fearing for my life, Sun Media sits down on the wind-swept beaches of Will Rogers State Park in Santa Monica with two of Jack Sparrow's scurvy crew.
To celebrate tomorrow's DVD debut of the third Pirates instalment, At World's End, the Walt Disney Studios crew had arranged a Pirate Boot Camp. A motley band of media types fumbled with weaponry, attended talk-like-a-pirate school and climbed a crow's nest.
Then came the private pirate palaver. On me one hooked hand is the big, bad, bald one Pintel (Lee Arenberg). On the other is the plucky little person, mad Marty (Martin Klebba).
Up for discussion is the Pirates phenomenon, Johnny Depp's bravura performance as Captain Jack Sparrow and the special-effects miracle of producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski's filmmaking.
"The real key to the success of Pirates of the Caribbean," Klebba says, "is that people like Jerry and Gore brought in people like Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush, and even great character actors like Lee and myself, thank you. They weren't afraid to really put it out there and go with it."
"I also attribute it a lot," adds Arenberg, "to the fact that they made it as an old-fashioned movie. It was like an old Technicolor movie where it was literally a feast for the eyes."
The Pirates movies are so old-school that no one would have been surprised to see Errol Flynn on the Black Pearl bridge with Depp, Arenberg says with a laugh. Depp does team with Rush.
"We were blessed with Geoffrey Rush," Arenberg says, "because he gives almost equally a gravitas performance as Johnny."
The Pirates movies were also shot on location on enormous budgets. The trilogy cost an estimated $665 million (and has earned in excess of $2.68 billion, according to Box Office Mojo).
"Jerry is an impresario filmmaker," Arenberg says of Bruckheimer. "My joke is that, if we did 300, we would have shot that in Thermopylae. You literally have a movie where you're on the pirate ships, you're in the Caribbean, and the artistry is unparalleled, from the costumes to the makeup to the set design.
"That's what lures you in as an audience member, the beautiful composition of the actual films. Then you balance it out with this performance of a lifetime, of an age, with Johnny Depp re-defining movie acting.
"The fact that he had the balls to stand up to the studio, to defend his character choices and go: 'I think I'm right here!' is amazing. The good thing is that Jerry and these guys are good poker players. Because Johnny Depp was right. He hit four Jacks on the flop and he made it legendary. That set up all of our successes."
"It's a credit to Johnny," Klebba says. "There are some great actors out there but I don't think there is anybody who could have pulled this off to the point where he did."
Now Pirates defines Klebba's own career. "Lee and I always talk about it. We are the Star Wars of today. That is, the original Episodes IV, V and VI. Those are movies that my kid, who's 10, is as excited by as I was when I was 10. Thirty or 40 years from now, people are still going to be going: "Oh, yeah! Pirates of the Caribbean!"
"I think it's neat to actually be on the map," Arenberg adds. "For me, the break was that they couldn't find short, bald and crazy in London. The fact is that they couldn't match someone up to Mackenzie Crook (the glass-eyed pirate who is Stan Laurel to Arenberg's Oliver Hardy). I luckily fit the bill. So you get lucky one time and you better be good."
"My biggest challenge," Klebba said, "was that I did my own stunts. So I was putting in double the time."
No matter the hours or how hard the work, all were inspired by Verbinski, Arenberg says.
"He has this incredible energy. When your director is the most enthusiastic company member, everyone else has to suck it up. So it always felt like kids putting on a show -- and it was a big one!"
