In the 1980s, the production company Carolco Pictures developed a radiant reputation with successes such as Terminator 2 – Day of Billing, Rambo and Total Recall. However, the lucky streak ended in the 90s. Highly indebted, producer Mario Kassar was looking for the next hit – and came across the script for a pirate adventure. However, production became a legendary disaster.
The pirate: Interior film should actually be the financial rescue
The Finnish director Renny Harlin, who had previously successfully staged Die 2, had been responsible for the film called the pirate bride (original title: Cutthroat Island). His wife, the actress Geena Davis, played the leading role: Piratin Morgan Adamswho is looking for a lost treasure in Jamaica in 1668. There was even a second top-class main actor, none other than Oscar award winner Michael Douglas.
However, the script has been rewritten several times in the course of production. At some point Geena Davis was clearly the focus, which Michael Douglas didn’t like at all. Production lost her big star And slipped rapidly to the abyss from then on.
Douglas jumped off, the script did not work, countless arguments led to layoffs
The male leading role was offered countless big names in the following months: Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves and Liam Neeson are just a few examples from the long list. In the end, Matthew Modine, who was mainly known from Full Metal Jacket at that time. In the meantime you also know him as Dr. Brenner in Stranger Things or from the new Netflix series Zero Day.
But Modine could not bring production back to the right path. Many participants blamed the focus on a female hero figure, which was a rarity for blockbusters in Hollywood from this time. In addition, Geena Davis was not an established blockbuster star at that time, but above all in comedies and dramas such as a class for himself and Thelma & Louise. Director Harlin described the situation in an interview with Slashfilm 2011 as follows:
We begged to throw us out. […] We held a pirate film with a female leading role for suicide, but we were contractually obliged to do so.
During the shooting there were numerous Accidents, confrontations and layoffsas Variety reports. Everyone involved seemed clear that it was a flop. And so it came in December 1995 when the adventure film started in the cinemas.
The pirate bride drives an entire company into financial ruin
Just 18 of the $ 115 million invested played the pirate bride again. The Reviews were devastating,, Shortly afterwards, Carolco Pictures reported bankrupt. Harlin later looked back on the failure:
Was it painful when it all collapsed? Yes. Did we learn a lot? Yes.
The flop made such waves that those responsible for the curse of the Caribbean wore their existence a few years later: pirate films seemed a safe bank for failure. But as we know, Disney production was under a better star. It can only be guessed whether this is due to pure happiness or Johnny Depp’s legendary performance.
The pirate bride has one in the Moviepilot community medium rating of 5.6 receive. In the stream he is currently available on the Prime Video Canal Moviecult. The disaster turn has officially achieved cult status.