Where to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

Trivia & production notes

• The film's title was taken from Tim Powers's 1987 novel On Stranger Tides, which screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio discovered while working on the previous two Pirates films.
• Rob Marshall accepted the directorial role partly because the story felt like a fresh start with new characters, which appealed to him after working on other projects.
• Johnny Depp announced the fourth Pirates film at Disney's D23 Expo in September 2009 while wearing full Captain Jack Sparrow costume and a Lone Ranger mask to simultaneously promote his involvement in The Lone Ranger.
• Screenwriter Terry Rossio and Tim Powers both clarified that while the film borrowed Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth from the novel, Jack Sparrow and Barbossa do not appear in Powers's original book, so it was not a straight adaptation.
• Dick Cook, the Walt Disney Studios chairman who championed the project and initially championed Johnny Depp's portrayal of Jack Sparrow on the first film, resigned in September 2009 just before production began, shaking Depp's confidence in the project.
• The writers intentionally designed the script as a standalone film rather than a continuation or start of a new trilogy, drawing inspiration from the James Bond franchise model.
• Rob Marshall drew inspiration from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, including a skeleton holding a magnifying glass in Ponce de León's ship as an homage.
• Johnny Depp was heavily involved in the story development, frequently meeting with writers to discuss ideas and suggest plot elements such as making Philip a missionary and adding a Spanish contingent to the narrative.
• The screenwriters decided to expand the role of mermaids in the film based on a brief reference in Tim Powers's novel that described them as erotically dangerous creatures that preyed on marooned sailors.
• Producers chose to streamline the story and reduce the number of characters after feeling that the previous installment, At World's End, became unwieldy due to too many subplots and characters to follow.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.