654 million was the box office for the first Pirates of the Caribbean.
Budget of 140 million1 billion was the box office for the second.
Budget of 225 million.960 million was the box office for the third.
Budget of 300 million.1 billion was the box office for the fourth.
Budget of 410 million.794 million was the box office for the fifth film.
Budget of 320 million.
The fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film was a box office disaster, where it was the lowest performing Pirates movie adjusted for inflation, while also with inflation adjusted for it, still costing about double what the original cost to make.
Which to a lot of people, making 794 million on a budget of 320 seems like a good return, but movies are tough to make money back on.
First up, ticket splits, where theaters take anywhere from 40-60% of the ticket money in the US and for international release, it could be up to 70%.
This means 794 million dollars, actually looks more like 350-400 million for studios.
That’s also not factoring in marketing, where the general rule is the marketing budget if 50% of the budget to make, which would put costs at close to 500 million for Pirates 5.
Very likely, Pirates of the Caribbean was an expensive box office failure, where it could have lost 50-100 million.
That sounds bad, but isn’t everything for larger franchise such as Pirates.
Pirates of the Caribbean has since release made 7.9 billion dollars in revenue.
4.5 billion of that came from movies, but the rest came from merchandise, as well as DVD/blue ray sales.
There’s also unaccounted for value the movies bring in, such as potential subscriptions to Disney+ or ticket sales to Disney Land.
This makes a case even if Pirates 5 wasn’t profitable in theaters, it could have made money in other ways for Disney to keep the franchise alive though.
Today, it looks unlikely the Pirates franchise will continue, where even with a sixth movie announced, with Johnny Depp not signed for it, the backlash and loss of biggest character seems unlikely to continue it.
The final question though is this.
Was Amber Heard the actual reason for firing Johnny Depp or was it just the Pirates franchise starting to lose money and Depp being too expensive?
Johnny Depp made 10 million for the first Pirates of the Caribbean.
In the fifth one, he made 90 million dollars, pulling in over 350 million dollars doing five Pirates movies.
Which Pirates was really the only big box office draw for Johnny Depp in the last 20 years, with other movies flopping.
Dark Shadows
Alice in Wonderland 2
Transcendence
While some hits happened such as Alice in Wonderland one and Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, most of the last 20 years were mediocre or low earning movies, with the Pirates franchise being Depp’s big win.
This makes a case that Disney getting rid of him, was more of them using Amber Heard as an excuse to get a lower costs cast for Pirates sequels and justify not continuing Johnny Depp.
Something which I believe was a complete backfire, where now if they do a Pirates movie without Depp, it’ll be instantly bashed movie, just due to them firing him only days after the Amber Heard scandal broke.
Better approach would have probably been trying a spinoff series, signing Depp up for cameos at a lower costs and keeping people happier, versus punishing Johnny Depp on a case which looks like 80-90% of people support him on.
That said, it looks like the Pirates franchise is now just a sunken ship.