Reception Studies: Pirates of The Caribbean 1 & 2

Pirates of the Caribbean was a phenomena among movies, making over forty-six million dollars its opening weekend alone and having five Oscar nominations. When it came out in 2003, I remember talking to my friends about it and knowing that it had become instantly popular. However, when the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest) a lot of fans of the first movie became overly disappointed. Thought its opening weekend it got over 135 million dollars, overall, the responses to Dead Man’s Chest were less than positive. Even looking at comments on imdb.com I found one that stated “It’s definitely one of the worst films I have ever seen;” while comments from Curse of the Black Pearl sounded more like, “Black Pearl was - and is - sheer magic that does not get old. The second was too heavily weighted with special effects at the expense of actor screen time and character development.” Arguably, the only reason Dead Man’s Chest got so much income was because of the success of the first one. Looking at the two movies through a consumption analysis lens, viewers, after seeing both films, compared them to each other and interpreted them in different ways; the first being more entertaining than the second one. According to the second quote, and in my opinion also, it seems that viewers were more interested in character development and the story than special effects and unnecessary action. Looking at the income that a series gets does not always reflect how much the viewers liked or disliked the movies.