casting · Actor

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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (released in some territories as Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge) is a 2017 American swashbuckler film directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, and written by Jeff Nathanson. It is the fifth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, following On Stranger Tides (2011), and features an ensemble cast including Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Geoffrey Rush, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario, and Kevin McNally. The film follows a search for the Trident of Poseidon by a down-on-his-luck Captain Jack Sparrow pursued by Captain Armando Salazar and a crew of deadly ghosts who have escaped from the Devil's Triangle, determined to kill every pirate at sea and take revenge on Sparrow.

Development of the film started shortly before the previous film was released in May 2011, with Terry Rossio writing the initial script, and Depp being involved in the writing process. In early 2013, Nathanson was hired to write a new script, while Rønning and Sandberg became involved in the project shortly afterward. The filmmakers cited the series' first installment, The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), as inspiration for the script and tone of the film. Initially planned for a 2015 release, the film was delayed to 2016 and then to 2017, due to script and budget issues. Principal photography started in Queensland, Australia in February 2015, after the Australian government offered Disney $20 million in tax incentives, and ended that July. With an estimated production budget of $230–320 million, it is among the most expensive films ever made.

Dead Men Tell No Tales premiered at the Shanghai Disney Resort on May 11, 2017, and was released in the United States on May 26. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and grossed $796 million.

Plot

13 years after Will Turner first leaves Elizabeth Swann aboard the Flying Dutchman, Will is visited by his twelve-year-old son, Henry. Will is still bound to the Dutchman, but Henry says that he can be freed from his curse by the Trident of Poseidon. Although his father tells him to accept his fate, Henry intends to recruit pirate Captain Jack Sparrow to help find the Trident.

Nine years later, Henry is a sailor aboard a British Navy ship, which sails into the supernatural Devil's Triangle, where the sailors come across the ghost ship Silent Mary and are slaughtered by ghosts led by the Spanish Navy pirate hunter, Captain Armando Salazar. Salazar leaves Henry as the sole survivor so that he can deliver a message of revenge to Jack. Jack, as a young pirate, had tricked Salazar into entering the Triangle, causing his death but also inadvertently cursing his ship and crew as the undead.

On Saint Martin, young astronomer Carina Smyth is sentenced to death for witchcraft but escapes and crosses paths with Jack, who has been suffering from a spell of bad luck since his last adventure, as his pirate crew botches a bank robbery. Jack later trades his compass for a drink, an act that destroys the Devil's Triangle and frees Salazar's ghostly crew to seek revenge. Carina learns Henry is looking for the Trident's location and offers to help him using her unknown father's diary. Upon their arrests, Carina and Jack stall the execution process, but they escape with the help of Henry and Jack's crew. They all set sail on the Dying Gull, where Carina deciphers the clues in her diary, discovering that the stars will lead to an island where the Trident is hidden.

Meanwhile, Captain Hector Barbossa is informed that Salazar has attacked three pirate ships of Barbossa's fleet. Shansa, a sea witch, tells Barbossa that the Trident could lead him to a "treasure" and gives him Jack's compass. Barbossa makes a deal with Salazar by offering to help find Jack. Salazar pursues the Dying Gull, forcing Jack, Henry, and Carina to flee to an island, discovering that Salazar's crew cannot go on land. Barbossa allies himself with Jack, releasing the miniaturized Black Pearl that was trapped in a bottle by Blackbeard, and taking command of it once more as they continue their journey to the Trident's island. During the voyage, Jack and Barbossa realize Carina is Barbossa’s long-lost daughter.

The Silent Mary destroys a British Navy warship and battles the Pearl until it runs aground on the Trident's island. Jack, Barbossa, and Carina use the island's magic to part the ocean, which opens a path to the Trident on the ocean floor. Salazar captures Henry and possesses him to walk on the ocean floor and seize the Trident. Once he does so, Henry is given his body back, and Jack distracts Salazar, allowing Henry to destroy the Trident, breaking all curses upon the sea and restoring Salazar's crew to life. However, the Trident's destruction causes the divided sea to close in on them. The Pearl lowers its anchor to lift the group to safety, but Salazar pursues them.

Carina realizes that Barbossa is her father when she spots a tattoo of the Trident's star formation, identical to the diary's cover, on his arm. Barbossa sacrifices himself to kill Salazar, allowing the others to escape. Shortly afterwards, Carina names herself "Barbossa" before Henry and Carina go to Port Royal, Jamaica. Henry and Carina kiss before Henry reunites with Will, now free from the Dutchman, on land. Will then embraces and kisses Elizabeth immediately afterwards. After watching the reunion from aboard the Pearl, Jack, now its captain once again, adopts Barbossa's monkey "Jack" before sailing away into the horizon.

In a post-credits scene, Will and Elizabeth are asleep in a bedroom when the shadow of Davy Jones enters. When the figure moves closer with his claw, Will wakes up to see nobody in the room. Assuming it was a nightmare, Will turns toward his wife and goes back to sleep, unaware of the barnacles lying on the floor next to the bed.

Cast

Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow: A down-on-his-luck pirate and captain of the Black Pearl, which is now trapped in a bottle, who travels with Henry and Carina in search of the Trident of Poseidon to defeat an old nemesis, Captain Salazar. Rønning wanted to focus on relatable characters, as in the first film, "where Jack is not the [lead... but] comes in and crashes the party every now and then," and to make use of Depp's "comedic genius". The film examines Jack's backstory, with the young Jack portrayed by Anthony De La Torre, whose face was replaced by a CGI replica of Depp as he looked in 21 Jump Street and What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993). Rønning felt de-aging Depp was tricky against the canon of the franchise.

Javier Bardem as Captain Armando Salazar: Once the greatest pirate hunter who ever roamed the seas as Captain of the Silent Mary for the Spanish Navy, an old nemesis of Jack Sparrow, now a cursed ghost commanding a crew of undead soldiers who escape from the Devil's Triangle, seeking revenge on Jack Sparrow and determined to kill every pirate at sea. "He's a little supernatural. He's on a real mission of vengeance for something Jack did to him when he was 18. He's a pretty nasty character." Bardem set out to imbue the character with "a rage based on dented pride," owing to his spectacular fall, from a high-ranking commander of a Spanish fleet to being betrayed and trapped in hell by Jack. With Salazar's body language, he tried to convey a bull in an arena, "full of rage and need of vengeance, but also wounded." It took three hours a day to apply the make-up, which Bardem referred to as having "cold chicken breasts" glued to his face.

Geoffrey Rush as Captain Hector Barbossa: Sparrow's rival, the former Captain of the Black Pearl, and the Captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge. On the character's role of having settled into a growing and prosperous pirate empire, Rush said, "Barbossa has become extremely wealthy. He's got more money than he can deal with and he's not a guy of high taste. He's running a very big empire, maybe 10 or 12 ships, so he's the…