9 Movie Sequels That Ruined Great Characters

Call it overexposure or blame it on franchise fatigue but Captain Jack Sparrow today feels a far cry from the breath of fresh air he was back when the first Pirates of the Caribbean film The Curse of the Black Pearl was released back in 2003. Once permanently soused but simultaneously wily and charming, the last two POTC films saw him morph into something that far more resembled a drunken buffoon than a formidable anti-hero.

Part of the problem is the shift in focus to Sparrow in On Stranger Tides and Dead Men Tell No Tales. Though Sparrow was undoubtedly the character that stole the show in the first three POTC movies, plot-wise he kind of took a backseat to the various goings-on between Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann which worked well for both the films and Sparrow.

But with Will and Elizabeth largely absent from the last two films, Sparrow seemed to get promoted from secondary character to lead which unfortunately just served to show how caricaturish he’s become.