After developing it for years as a more straightforward pirate adventure, producer Jerry Bruckheimer became involved and assigned Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio to the project, who added the supernatural elements that really set it apart, with the cursed pirates (led by Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa) turning into undead skeletons in the moonlight. Verbinski has a field day with this idea, particularly in a climactic battle, where, amongst other things, he has the pirates darting in and out of moonbeams, turning from man to monster and back again. (There’s a moment where a bomb is thrown into a skeletal pirate and then pushed into a shadow, where his human self then explodes.) And it’s moments like these, crammed into every nook and cranny, that made the movie such a refreshing surprise. It was wild and unhinged and felt dangerous and new (Eisner was nervous about the Disney logo being ahead of the movie so the film just starts). [links]