Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End arrived in theaters today with the goal of making Shrek walk the plank. After a bockbuster $121 million opening last weekend, DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek the Third faces off against Captain Jack Sparrow in one of the summer’s most highly anticipated event films. The third Pirates adventure sailed into 4,362 theaters, a slightly wider release than even Sony/Columbia’s mega-hit Spider-Man 3.
In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth Swann (Kiera Kinghtley) and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) travel to the ends of the world to save Jack Sparrow from the clutches of the Kraken. The rescue mission soon turns into an epic battle as our heroes summon the pirate lords from the four corners of the globe to take on Davey Jones (Bill Nighy), Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) and the entire East India Trading Company.
The swashbuckling action is augmented with a heaping helping of CG animation and other visual effects. As with the previous Pirates pics, ILM handled the lion’s share of the vfx work, including the digital Davey Jones and the cursed crew of the Flying Dutchman. Help was provided by other vendors including Digital Domain, Evil Eye Pictures, Asylum, Pacific Title and The Orphanage.
The only other film opening in relatively wide release this weekend is Lionsgate’s Bug, a horror thriller from Exorcist director William Friedkin. Based on an off-Broadway play by Tracy Letts, the film stars Michael Shannon from the stage production as a paranoid war vet who holes up in an hotel room with a lonely woman, played by Ashley Judd, and convinces her that there are bugs crawling everywhere, even under their skin.
Opening in New York today is Paprika, the latest anime tour-de-force from Japanese filmmaker Satoshi Kon (Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, Perfect Blue). Adapted from a science fiction novel by Yatsutaka Tsutsui, the film has a young female therapist trying to to set things right when a machine that allows therapists to enter their patient’s dreams is stolen and falls into the wrong hands. The Sony Classics release screened in Los Angeles late last year to qualify for Oscar consideration, but will officially open on the West Coast next weekend before rolling out to other cities in limited release.
Shrek the Third has earned more than $144 million domestically and $158 million worldwide since opening last weekend. The animated family flick has been outpacing its predecessors, though a crowded summer could keep it from reaching the heights hit by Shrek 2 in 2004. Sony Animation’s Surf’s Up is close behind with a June 8 debut, followed by 20th Century Fox’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer on June 15 and Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille on June 29.
Read about the making of the visual effects in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End in the latest issue of Animation Magazine.
