20 Times Actors Bet Against Hollywood (And WON)

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is one of the unlikeliest Hollywood successes of the 21st century. Everyone was convinced the film would bomb; it was based on a theme park ride, several other pirate-themed films had underperformed at that time and furthermore, there was the casting of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. 

Back then, Johnny Depp was a character actor associated with quirky performances in auteur-led projects. He was not regarded as leading man material... until people sat down to watch the movie, that is. They were forced to eat their words after that. 

Curse of the Black Pearl is a very good film in general, but Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow was what really made it such a ridiculously entertaining blockbuster. He is iconic in this part, delivering one of the most characterful, purely-entertaining blockbuster lead turns of them all. So brilliant was his work that he actually got an Oscar nomination for it, and for many years he was quite possibly the biggest star in the world. Hell, he got paid a staggering $50 million for just seven minutes of screen-time in 2010's Alice in Wonderland. 

The later Pirates films are divisive and it's arguable that too many of Depp's subsequent roles were overly derivative of Jack Sparrow, but his original turn as the drunken pirate remains absolutely peerless, and it's one of the most unexpectedly great movie castings of them all.