When Walt Disney Pictures released their first ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie in 2003 it soon became evident that they were onto a winner.

Since the early days of film when there were such classics as ‘Captain Blood ‘ in 1935 and ‘The Sea Hawk ‘ in 1940 there have been very few films about pirates that are worth any real mention. Only a few examples come to mind such as Roman Polanski’s ‘Pirates’ in 1986 and ‘The Goonies’ which made good use of a pirate-based storyline. Another movie that should also be mentioned, albeit for different reasons is 1995′s ‘Cutthroat Island’. This calamity of a movie ended up costing an unbelievable $100 million dollars at the time. The film went on to recover a mere $11 million dollars. The Guinness Book of World Records describes it as ‘the largest box office loss’ whilst The Washington Post said that ‘Cutthroat Island’s’ lame cliff-hangers are enough to make you a cliff jumper’.

So, as you can see, there was a gap in the movie industry just waiting to be filled with a good old fashioned pirates flick.

Enter Johnny Depp. Unless you are one of the few people to have not watched one of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ films then you will more than likely agree when I say that Mr Depp is perfectly cast as Captain Jack Sparrow. It would be incredibly difficult trying to imagine anyone else being able to play the role anywhere near as well as Depp. Who else could be quirky, camp, cool, sexy and funny all at the same time? Out of the many modern actors that we have in Hollywood today it has to be said that Johnny Depp must be one of the most versatile. The range of parts that he has played has been incredibly varied and impressive.

The ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ films have each been received very positively by both adults and children alike. They are the equivalent of the hugely successful ‘Indiana Jones’ series with Harrison Ford. They are good family movies, something that is becoming harder to come across these days.

Today ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ has become one of the largest movie franchises of all time. There have been numerous video games based on the films (including an online game that was released by Disney themselves), a special ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ edition of Monopoly and even a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ version of the Battleships game is available.All drive the themes at fancy dress costumes parties.

In interviews, after the release of the first film in the series, ‘The Curse of the Black Pearl’, Johnny Depp confessed that he had partly modeled his character on aging rocker Keith Richards. Richards made a cameo appearance in the third film of the series, ‘At World’s End’, as Captain Teague who is actually Captain Jack Sparrow’s father. He was supposed to have made an appearance in ‘The Curse of the Black Pearl’ but the writers couldn’t manage to fit him into the story.

Unfortunately, audiences will have a long wait before the next installment of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. The fourth film in the series, ‘The Fountain of Youth’, is scheduled for release in 2012.