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Why Johnny Depp Couldn’t Save The Pirates Of The Caribbean Movies

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Despite courting controversy, Johnny Depp remains an incredibly popular actor, yet he still couldn’t save Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

While the franchise’s critical reception waned over its run, it has been incredibly successful financially, with Pirates of the Caribbean being one of the highest-grossing franchises of all time, raking in $4.52 billion. However, despite the series’ box-office numbers and dedicated fanbase, the fall of Pirates of the Caribbean can mostly be traced back to one thing: Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow.

Starting in 2003 with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Disney’s swashbuckling saga has seen success since its beginnings, with the series spanning five blockbuster entries. While the films are based on the popular Disney Parks ride, the five Pirates of the Caribbean movies have gone on to develop their own rich and interesting lore, with some elements becoming so popular that they have been re-integrated into the ride. Over time, the quality of the films became increasingly poor, with the fifth and final entry Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales generally being considered the worst of the bunch. Sadly, what started out as a fun adventure series and loving homage to the ride quickly became a contrived, silly, bloated mess – and Jack Sparrow just made things worse.

Johnny Depp’s initial take on Captain Jack Sparrow was fantastic, with his performance in Curse of the Black Pearl bringing a fun and unique twist to the typical archetype of the pirate captain. Clearly being the standout in the films, Jack Sparrow quickly became the face of the franchise, with him now existing in the pop culture pantheon of Disney legends that few ever reach. Jack Sparrow was swiftly added to the various Disney parks, featured in spin-off books, plastered onto all kinds of merchandise, and more. However, Jack Sparrow gradually went wrong, becoming the driving force behind Pirates of the Caribbean’s fall from grace. As the character took center stage and increasingly dominated the narrative, Sparrow’s original charisma slowly became the series’ Achilles heel. As such, not only was Depp unable to save the Pirates saga, he arguably helped sink it for good.

Curse of the Black Pearl was an instant hit upon its release, making $654.3 million on a $140 million budget. The film launched Depp’s career as a bankable, bona fide action star, was the third highest-grossing movie of 2003, and was nominated for five Academy Awards. Curse of the Black Pearl single-handedly brought back the pirate genre, following a series of flops that concluded with 1995’s Cutthroat Island. 2006’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest was an even bigger success, making $1.066 billion on a $225 million budget, although reviews were worse than its predecessor’s. The subsequent three films continued this trend, selling more tickets while inflating their budgets, aggrandizing spectacle at the expense of story. Despite their steep decline in quality, the series remained popular at the box office, with Pirates of the Caribbean currently being the 15th highest-grossing franchise of all time. Pirates of the Caribbean was a pop culture phenomenon, one that could have kept going for ages if more care had been taken with the story.

Although it doesn’t seem like it now, Jack Sparrow isn’t actually the main character of Curse of the Black Pearl. While Jack has a lot of screen time, the original film’s story is actually centered on Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, with the role of Jack being that of an eccentric side character. However, as the series goes on, Jack Sparrow creeps more and more into the spotlight, pushing Will and Elizabeth out of their leading roles. The films solidified this Jack Sparrow mistake in the fourth film, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, as Will and Elizabeth’s absence definitively makes Jack Sparrow the main character. He essentially committed mutiny on the series, taking over Will and Elizabeth’s franchise in On Stranger Tides. The decision to bring Jack Sparrow to the fore meant that he was inherently associated with the Pirates series’ other flaws, meaning that the character was unable to help save the franchise.

While a film centered on Jack Sparrow isn’t inherently impossible to make, the problem is that he never evolved across the five films; rather, Jack Sparrow devolved. While Jack Sparrow was drunk, silly, and hedonistic in Curse of the Black Pearl, he felt as if he knew what he was doing, with him truly deserving the title of “best pirate I’ve ever seen.” By the time he appears in Dead Men Tell No Tales, though, Jack Sparrow is only a shell of his former self, bumbling through the movies with no agency. In the later films, Jack Sparrow feels as if he’s a complete caricature that has no idea what he is doing, surviving based on luck and plot armor alone. Jack Sparrow in the latter half of Pirates of the Caribbean is the perfect example of Flanderization, the trope named after The Simpsons’ Ned Flanders. Jack Sparrow was given plenty of history, with the films sending him to Davy Jones’s Locker and introducing his father, but his characterization never changed.

By the time the Pirates of the Caribbean series was coming to a close, Johnny Depp’s starpower was the franchise’s only real selling point. Depp’s Hollywood popularity quickly faded though, following a series of films in the early 2010s like The Lone Ranger, Transcendence, Mortdecai, and many others. On top of his waning career, the mid-to-late 2010s saw the start of the legal battle between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. Due to this, the actor was dropped from lucrative franchises, with Depp losing his role in the Fantastic Beasts movies and Universal’s failed Dark Universe. Due to the declining popularity of the franchise and Johnny Depp’s loss of Hollywood influence, Johnny Depp was let go from Pirates of the Caribbean, essentially killing the franchise due to Jack Sparrow being the last leg it had to stand on. While many debate whether this was a good choice or not, the effect this decision has had on the once-great series is undeniable.

So, while Pirates of the Caribbean has floundered for the past few years, it seems Disney may be trying to revive the once-dead series again. There have been rumblings of a Margot Robbie-led spin-off or reboot, as well as rumors of Disney attempting to bring back Jack Sparrow, although Johnny Depp’s Pirates of the Caribbean 6 return seems unlikely. Although another film may one day be made, it is unlikely that the series will ever be as big as it once was. With the increasing focus on Jack Sparrow, Disney continued the franchise solely on Johnny Depp’s performance and starpower, and without him, it may never see the success it once did. The Pirates of the Caribbean craze of the early-to-mid 2000s is almost unmatched, and while a continuation led by Margot Robbie may be successful in its own right, it may never capture the lightning in a bottle that the original trilogy did. The later sequels built themselves on the power of Johnny Depp, and ironically, Johnny Depp is what killed Pirates of the Caribbean.

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Tina Turner’s Cause of Death Revealed

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More details on Tina Turner’s passing have come to light.

One day after the legendary performer died at the age of 83, her cause of death has been attributed to natural causes, her representatives confirmed to DailyMail.com. Her publicist also told NBC News her death came after a long illness.

E! News has reached out to her manager for comment but hasn’t heard back.

On May 24, her team shared that she passed away at her home in Switzerland.

“With her music and her boundless passion for life, she enchanted millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow,” a statement posted to her social media pages read. “Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who leaves us all her greatest work: her music. All our heartfelt compassion goes out to her family. Tina, we will miss you dearly.”

During the latter years of her life, the “Proud Mary” artist opened up about battling several health issues, including high blood pressure, vertigo, a stroke, intestinal cancer and kidney failure.

In her 2021 documentary, Tina, the singer also shared she experienced post-traumatic stress disorder as a result from her tumultuous marriage to her ex Ike Turner.

“I’ve been on such a wild roller-coaster in the four years since my wedding,” Turner—who wed music executive Erwin Bach in 2013—wrote in her memoir, My Love Story, per Today, “that even I have difficulty keeping my medical catastrophes straight.”

Turner’s passing came just five months after the death of her and Ike’s son Ronnie and nearly five years after her son Craig passed away.

Tina Turner's Cause of Death Revealed

Her death sent shockwaves through Hollywood, with many celebrities speak out about the influence her achievements had on the industry.

“Through her courage in telling her story, her commitment to stay the course in her life, no matter the sacrifice, and her determination to carve out a space in rock and roll for herself and for others who look like her,” Angela Bassett, who played the legend in the 1993 biopic What’s Love Got to Do With It, said in a statement. “Tina Turner showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom should look like.”

As the actress—who won a Golden Globe for her role—noted, it was an honor knowing the icon on a personal level.

“Her final words to me, for me, were ‘You never mimicked me. Instead, you reached deep into your soul, found your inner Tina, and showed her to the world,’” she added. “I shall hold these words close to my heart for the rest of my days.”

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Tina Turner survived an abusive relationship with Ike and death of two sons

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Tina Turner escaped an abusive relationship to find true love with her second husband, Erwin Bach.

The singer, who passed away aged 83 on Wednesday following an unspecified illness, was in a relationship with the record executive for 38 years. The pair married in 2013.

Tina had publicly praised Erwin for helping her find happiness after fleeing from her first marriage to husband, Ike Turner, which was plagued with physical and emotional abuse.

Ike first met Tina when she was a vulnerable teenager named Annie Mae Bullock. He renamed her Tina, and went on to form the musical duo, Ike & Tina Turner. According to Tina, he micromanaged her career, withheld her finances and beat her while she was pregnant.

After filing for divorce in 1978, Tina was left in debt and had her children to support. She went on to establish a successful solo career.

The songstress met Erwin in 1985 when he was working as an executive with EMI. The pair had an instant connection the moment they met, when he arrived to collect her from Düsseldorf airport.

She said Erwin had taught her how “to love without giving up who I am”, and that he had never been intimidated by her fame or success. He even donated a kidney to her in April 2017, which saved her life.

Writing in her book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, Tina said: “Falling in love with my husband, Erwin, was another exercise in leaving my comfort zone, of being open to the unexpected gifts that life has to offer.

“The day I first met Erwin, at an airport in Germany, I should have been too tired from my flight, too preoccupied with thoughts of my concert tour. But I did notice him, and I instantly felt an emotional connection.

“Even then, I could have ignored what I felt — I could have listened to the ghost voices in my head telling me that I didn’t look good that day, or that I shouldn’t be thinking about romance because it never ends well. Instead, I listened to my heart.”

Tina’s spokesman confirmed she died “peacefully” at home and added: “With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model. With her music and her inexhaustible vitality, Tina Turner thrilled millions of fans and inspired many artists of subsequent generations.”

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Tina Turner: legendary rock’n’roll singer dies aged 83

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Tina Turner, the pioneering rock’n’roll star who became a pop behemoth in the 1980s, has died aged age of 83 after a long illness, her publicist has told the PA news agency.
Turner affirmed and amplified Black women’s formative stake in rock’n’roll, defining that era of music to the extent that Mick Jagger admitted to taking inspiration from her high-kicking, energetic live performances for his stage persona. After two decades of working with her abusive husband, Ike Turner, she struck out alone and – after a few false starts – became one of the defining pop icons of the 1980s with the album Private Dancer. Her life was chronicled in three memoirs, a biopic, a jukebox musical, and in 2021, the acclaimed documentary film, Tina.

“Turner’s musical character has always been a charged combination of mystery as well as light, melancholy mixed with a ferocious vitality that often flirted with danger,” scholar Daphne A Brooks wrote for the Guardian in 2018.
Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on 26 November 1939 and raised in Nutbush, Tennessee, where she recalled picking cotton with her family as a child. She sang in the tiny town’s church choir, and as a teenager talked – or rather, sang – her way into Ike’s band in St Louis: he had declined her request to join until he heard her seize the microphone during a Kings of Rhythm performance for a rendition of BB King’s You Know I Love You.
She had suffered ill health in recent years, being diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016 and having a kidney transplant in 2017.

‘I was just tired of singing and making everybody happy’ … Tina Turner performs at the O2 Arena, London, in 2009. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

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