10 Brilliant Movies With A Terrible Concept

3. Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl

Swiss Army Man Daniel Radcliffe
Disney

The Concept: This barely even qualifies as a concept, but Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl took inspiration from Disney's own Pirates Of The Caribbean theme park ride.

It's immediately obvious that this doesn't lend itself well to a movie, and when you consider that, at the time, pirate movies were box-office and critical poison (thanks to flops like Waterworld and Cutthroat Island) The Curse Of The Black Pearl was about as bad as movie ideas get.

The Movie: Four sequels and billions of dollars later, it seems silly to think that Pirates Of The Caribbean was ever a bad idea, and while the most recent few movies haven't been all that great, the one that started it all is a remarkable action-adventure that deserved all the success it had.

Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow (sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow) is one of the most charming protagonists of all time, Hans Zimmer's swashbuckling score is one of his most memorable, the spooky, zombie-pirate effects still hold up today, and the relationship between Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann provides a strong emotional backbone that proves effortlessly endearing.

Simply put, The Curse Of The Black Pearl has it all, and it rarely feels better to be wrong about the outcome of a movie.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.