10 Movies That Started Shooting Without A Completed Script

3. Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl was a huge hit in 2003, surprising everyone; even Disney didn't expect that a movie based on a theme park attractions would gross $654 million worldwide. After that success, the studio decided to produce two sequels back-to-back, immediately scheduling them for release in July 2006 and May 2007 respectively. However, by January 2005 writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (who also wrote the original) had yet to finish the script for the first sequel, Dead Man€™s Chest, with shooting set to begin the next month. Disney threatened to cancel the two-film project altogether, but director Gore Verbinski had the duo write a "preparatory" script and storyboarded action sequences that didn't need to be scripted. Elliot and Rossio ended up writing the script for both Dead Man€™s Chest and the second sequel, At World€™s End, while on set during filming. Fortunately, the screenwriters finished the script for the third movie before much of it was shot. Dead Man's Chest remains the highest-grossing film in the Pirates series and became the first Disney film to gross over $1 billion worldwide, although most fans agree it was a step down from the original. Not a surprise, really.