Apologies in advance to anyone of a certain generation who immediately falls to their knees and cries out in despair when they hear this, but today marks exactly 20 years since Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl sailed into theaters on July 9, 2003.
Yep, it really has been that long since Johnny Depp stole our hearts as Captain Jack Sparrow, the instant cinematic icon etched into pop culture forevermore that landed the star the first Academy Award nomination of his career and launched both a multi-billion dollar franchise and a slew of imitators.
The influence of The Curse of the Black Pearl can’t be overestimated, especially when it released less than a decade after Cutthroat Island had bombed so spectacularly it killed Carolco Pictures and had the pirate movie effectively declared dead. Gore Verbinski had other ideas, but it never got any better than it did two decades ago.
Sure, all of the sequels made more money, but reviews kept getting progressively worse, while Disney’s repeated attempts to try and move the basic formula to a different setting in the hope of reaping the same rewards kept falling flat on its face when the likes of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Lone Ranger, and Jungle Cruise failed to catch fire at the box office.
Often imitated but never bettered, then, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl remains one of the most purely entertaining and unstoppably enjoyable big budget escapades of the 21st Century, even if it causes physical pain to realize it’s been 20 years on the button since it premiered.