CaptinJackLover
Here's an interview with Ted && Terry::
If there was such thing as the Midas touch in Hollywood, then screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio certainly have figured out how to apply it to moviemaking. After writing the screenplay for Disney's hugely successful animated film Aladdin in the early '90s, they revived the swashbuckler genre with The Mask of Zorro in 1998, then went on to co-write the original Shrek a few years later.
When their Disney animated film Treasure Planet failed to find success, one would think they would get as far away from pirates as they possibly could. Instead, they wrote the screenplay for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, a pretty gutsy move considering how poorly previous pirate films had done, and this one was loosely based on a Disney theme park ride!
The rest, as they say, is history, and five months after that hit movie's sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest set all sorts of records, becoming the biggest movie of 2006 and the sixth highest-grossing movies of all time, it's finally out on DVD.
ComingSoon.net talked to the two guys as they put the finishing touches on the third part of their trilogy, Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End, which comes out next summer.
ComingSoon.net: You've been working on these Pirates movies for a few years now. Have you finished the writing part at this point or are you still on-set working on rewrites while they're shooting?
Ted Elliott: The script is finished. We tend to show up on set when we're shooting new scenes and stuff. We were hanging pirates yesterday, so that was really interesting. We're actually kind of winding down to a situation where everything's been shot, and it's now time to put the movie together.
Terry Rossio: Yeah, I think we're just a couple weeks away. There's a fair amount of stunt work to be done, and one or two more scenes where hopefully we're there for rehearsal, they'll play well and won't require too much change. So yeah, it feels like we're coming to the end of a long road.
CS: Did you guys write the screenplays for 2 and 3 at the same time or just lay out the groundwork for both movies?
Elliott: When Disney made the decision to do two sequels back-to-back, we sat down and worked out the story for both of them. And in doing so, we basically said okay if they're doing two back-to-back, let's make it a trilogy, and we kind of retro-engineered the first one, which was designed as a single story, a standalone, all in of itself complete, and we were able to transform that into the first of a trilogy.
Rossio: Yeah, it's all looking forward to that triple trilogy box set.
Elliott: Yes, exactly.
Rossio: I actually went to a screening of "Back to the Future" in a theatre where they played all three films, and the ultimate thrill I think will be if somebody ever does that with the three Pirates movies, to go to a theatre and watch all three finished films. Hopefully, what we've done is we will have designed them to where if you do watch all three together, they'll be one overall cohesive story.
If there was such thing as the Midas touch in Hollywood, then screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio certainly have figured out how to apply it to moviemaking. After writing the screenplay for Disney's hugely successful animated film Aladdin in the early '90s, they revived the swashbuckler genre with The Mask of Zorro in 1998, then went on to co-write the original Shrek a few years later.
When their Disney animated film Treasure Planet failed to find success, one would think they would get as far away from pirates as they possibly could. Instead, they wrote the screenplay for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, a pretty gutsy move considering how poorly previous pirate films had done, and this one was loosely based on a Disney theme park ride!
The rest, as they say, is history, and five months after that hit movie's sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest set all sorts of records, becoming the biggest movie of 2006 and the sixth highest-grossing movies of all time, it's finally out on DVD.
ComingSoon.net talked to the two guys as they put the finishing touches on the third part of their trilogy, Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End, which comes out next summer.
ComingSoon.net: You've been working on these Pirates movies for a few years now. Have you finished the writing part at this point or are you still on-set working on rewrites while they're shooting?
Ted Elliott: The script is finished. We tend to show up on set when we're shooting new scenes and stuff. We were hanging pirates yesterday, so that was really interesting. We're actually kind of winding down to a situation where everything's been shot, and it's now time to put the movie together.
Terry Rossio: Yeah, I think we're just a couple weeks away. There's a fair amount of stunt work to be done, and one or two more scenes where hopefully we're there for rehearsal, they'll play well and won't require too much change. So yeah, it feels like we're coming to the end of a long road.
CS: Did you guys write the screenplays for 2 and 3 at the same time or just lay out the groundwork for both movies?
Elliott: When Disney made the decision to do two sequels back-to-back, we sat down and worked out the story for both of them. And in doing so, we basically said okay if they're doing two back-to-back, let's make it a trilogy, and we kind of retro-engineered the first one, which was designed as a single story, a standalone, all in of itself complete, and we were able to transform that into the first of a trilogy.
Rossio: Yeah, it's all looking forward to that triple trilogy box set.
Elliott: Yes, exactly.
Rossio: I actually went to a screening of "Back to the Future" in a theatre where they played all three films, and the ultimate thrill I think will be if somebody ever does that with the three Pirates movies, to go to a theatre and watch all three finished films. Hopefully, what we've done is we will have designed them to where if you do watch all three together, they'll be one overall cohesive story.
