Director Gore Verbinski reunites with his Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl cast and crew for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, the second film of the planned trilogy. I say 'planned' because Pirates star Johnny Depp has made it known he wouldn't mind revisiting his Captain Jack Sparrow character for a fourth - or even fifth - film. Director Verbinski hasn't said whether he'd like to do a couple more Pirates movies after completing numbers two and three, but after dedicating the last few years of his life to the world of Pirates, it's obvious Verbinski would say no to ever shooting two movies at the same time again.

Filming Pirates 2 and Pirates 3 Simultaneously: ?It was exhausting. think it?s a bit more of a duration issue. It?s a bit mad to take on two movies at once,? said Verbinski, who revealed he did it because there were more stories to tell featuring Captain Jack Sparrow and the gang. ?I didn?t feel that way with The Ring. I didn?t know where to go with it when they talked to me about doing that. And Pirates, there was no plan on making a second or third movie when we filmed the first one. Then the studio said, ?Could you do two more?? And that was sort of challenging to construct a trilogy in reverse, so to speak. That was exciting.?

Did shooting the second and third Pirates movies together help reduce the budget? ?Absolutely, you get to amortize your ships,? said Verbinski. ?On the first movie I think everything was sort of thrown in a dumpster. Movies are incredibly wasteful in terms of wood and lumber. When you are on an island, you give it away and everyone uses it to make houses. When you?re in Los Angeles, I think it?s recycled I suppose.

They get to keep everything. They get to keep a lot of sets. The Black Pearl is now built as a real seagoing vessel. In the first movie it was towed around on a barge. So, you can certainly amortize sets.

The biggest thing to take advantage of is you?re never going to get this cast and the writers and everybody back together again. Once you have had to negotiate everyone?s deal and get everybody to commit, it?s much better to make two. If we?d just made the second movie and then three years down the road tried to get everyone back together, I think it would have been a different thing.?

Changes to the Three Main Characters Over the Course of the Pirates Series: ?Elizabeth [played by Keira Knightley] and Will [Orlando Bloom], their love was sort of infantile in the first movie. It was very cute and pure and they are growing up. In looking at where we are going to end up in the third movie, I think the second movie is where they have to deal with real issues of love. I think in the first movie it was more storybook love. It was sort of, ?Oh, isn?t that cute.? It hits all the traditional buttons, but it doesn?t take you anywhere because it?s not that complicated.

In the second movie, we are dealing with real life. You deal with jealousy; you deal with how they are going to end up. For them to survive, it?s an interesting parallel which gets more elaborated in the third film, which is the love story of Davy Jones and why did he pull out his heart and how that relates to the love story of Elizabeth and Will. I mean, are they on the same path and are they going to pull out of that nosedive and what?s going to happen? It?s just important that the love story became more complicated. A marriage has to survive. It doesn?t exist in that storybook world.?

As for Johnny Depp?s character Captain Jack Sparrow, Verbinski said, ?Well, it?s a really tricky one with Captain Jack because I don?t think he?s the kind of character that you want to give a tremendous arc to. He succeeds. He?s such a piece of garlic in the soup that you need seven straight men against him. He can?t just rub against one. He needs to rub against a series of archetypes and a series of plot constructs. You have to somewhat make the movie without him and then put him in. If you just made the Johnny Depp movie, it?s just too much of one flavor. It?s such a [powerful] performance that you need some kind of broth to put it into.?

Refraining from Pushing Things Too Far Over the Top: Verbinski said he had discussions with Johnny Depp about when too much was too much. ?We go for it and then in the edit room, we kind of go, ?Okay, that?s one too [far out]. We?re getting ridiculous here.? We like to go back to ridiculous, but we like to keep it absurd and always have a little bit of tension. The thing about Jack?s character is that there is an honest streak and I think that?s what we always keep coming back to. Jack thinks he?s a bad boy, but he would love to not be as kind of good as he really is. The myth is out in front of him, but the truth is he?s a pretty honest guy. He just hates that about himself.?

Page 2:CGI Characters, the 'Pirates' Ride, and the Running Time