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Creating another film only four years later with him driving the action is not an act of artistic license; it is a merchandising decision. The results have been predictable as the film’s domestic opening weekend take is not even half of the record-setting debut of Dead Man’s Chest when we factor out 3D/IMAX ticket price inflation. North American audiences have had more than their fill of Jack Sparrow in the short term, yet Disney made this movie anyway for the obvious reason: Money. The unwanted and somewhat unwelcome fourth movie in the Pirates franchise has the worst Cinemascore of the four titles to date, B+, and appears likely to wind up as the worst domestic performer of the bunch. In spite of these perceived negatives, Disney executives are almost assuredly giddy with the results since it has exploded worldwide to the tune of about $350 million in three days.

I realize that we discuss hard to comprehend numbers a lot of the time at Box Office Prophets, so let us go at this a different way. Let’s say that your household income is $100,000, a number well above the average household income in North America. I recognize that BOP has a more affluent reader base so I’m allowing for that. You would need to work for 3,500 years to earn that much. That’s about four times as long Methuselah supposedly managed. And if you think you hate your boss now, just imagine what you’ll think of the one in the year 5,601. That thing may be from Omicron Persei 8.

Alternately, you would need to find 349 friends and each work for a hundred years to make this much. We lose perspective at times regarding just how massive a big number is, but that should get the point across. Using a sports analogy, we are discussing either A) enough money to pay the entire New York Mets payroll for two straight years or B) half of the money Bernie Madoff cost Mets ownership with his Ponzi Scheme. I would apologize to New York Mets fans for kicking you while you’re down this season, but...I’m a Braves fan. You know the deal.

The point here is that $350 million is a massive take. The fact that it happened in one weekend is mind-boggling. It’s easy for people to slag Disney for making a quick buck (well, $350 million of them) in this manner and I have to be honest that I have demonstrated just this behavior in the past with regards to DreamWorks Animation and their linchpin product, Shrek. Even so, I am having trouble blaming Disney in the same scenario given that when this production was finalized in the late summer of 2009, we were still in the middle of an unprecedented global financial crisis. If you were working at Disney at the time and looked at the summer schedule for 2010 and 2011, knowing the economic peril of the time, can you honestly say you would have done any differently? Before you answer, I will repeat my comments from the recent edition of Monday Morning Quarterback.

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