Jerry Bruckheimer told that Disney chairman Rich Ross wants the company to be “mean and lean” and “very cost-effective”.
This has meant screenwriters Ted Eliott and Terry Rossio instructed to give Johnny Depp's character Jack Sparrow more scenes on land rather than at sea, because of the high cost of water scenes. Filming is taking place in Hawaii and London (rather than LA and the Caribbean) for the tax incentives. The shoot will be fifty days shorter than At Worlds End (the number of shooting days scheduled is 90 to 95, down from 142 on the last movie), and there will be several hundred fewer FX shots (from around 2,000 down to 1,300 to 1,400). The script has lost an expensive scene on a frozen river Thames, and a chase through the streets of London has had its schedule cut from a fortnight to under a week.
The last movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, was one of the most expensive productions in film history, costing a staggering $300 million to make. The original Pirates of the Caribbean cost $140 million to make. The sequel cost $225 million. The amount of cash in the Pirates 4 treasure chest will be trimmed to just over $200million.
Director Rob Marshall, who begins filming in June said:
This is by far the biggest budget I've ever worked with. We're all working hard to keep it as lean as possible…. It's a tricky time in the economy. You can't be insane.
The movie stars Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, Geoffrey Rush as Cpt. Barbosa, Ian McShane as Cpt. Blackbeard, Penelope Cruz as Blackbeard's daughter, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Sam Claflin and Stephen Graham.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is scheduled to hit theaters on May 20, 2011.
