Probably almost everyone who went to the cinema in the early 2000s saw the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. With the pirate adventure featuring Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, Gore Verbinski created a blockbuster that was as celebrated as it was successful and which gave rise to a huge franchise.
But the director is also known for later films that could not repeat this success – on the contrary. Commercial flops hit Verbinski’s Hollywood career hard and it wasn’t until this year that fans could expect a sure comeback from the filmmaker.
Gore Verbinski created a billion-dollar franchise with Pirates of the Caribbean
After films such as Mouse Hunt and The Ring, the American made a blockbuster spectacle with Pirates of the Caribbean, which grossed over 654 million dollars worldwide with a budget of 140 million US dollars. The foundation for an entire film series was laid and Pirates of the Caribbean will have a total of five parts by 2017:
The entire adventure franchise grossed over $4.5 billion. Verbinski himself directed the first three partsbefore retiring from the franchise as a director.
Gore Verbinski’s Lone Ranger became one of the worst Hollywood flops of all time
After the third Pirates of the Caribbean film, Verbinski directed the animated western Rango, which was already a bit of a box office failure. But the director was hit even harder with his next blockbuster, Lone Ranger, which again starred Johnny Depp.
With a budget of between 225 and 250 million dollars, the mix of action and western only had a worldwide box office of just over 260 million dollars. For Disney, Lone Ranger was a financial disaster that is still one of the biggest box office flops in cinema history is counted.
Verbinski’s next film, A Cure for Wellness, was a horror-mystery-thriller mix that failed at the box office again. After that, things went quiet for the director and fans weren’t sure when and how he would be able to return to the Hollywood spotlight. But in 2024, it’s now certain that Verbinski will be making a new film eight years after A Cure for Wellness!
Watch a German trailer for A Cure for Wellness here:
A Cure for Wellness – Trailer 2 (German) HD
Gore Verbinski is preparing his science fiction comeback in 2024
According to Collider, the director will next shoot the sci-fi film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, starring Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz and Juno Temple.
In the Story of the time travel adventure Rockwell comes to a diner in Los Angeles as a man from the future. Here he wants to put together a group of different people to save the world in one night.
Production of the sci-fi film is expected to begin in South Africa in May 2024. A release date has not yet been set, but Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die could be released sometime in 2025. We can only hope that Gore Verbinski can build on past successes.