The Hollywood Byte #24: Captain Jack Sparrow

When it comes to Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp's eccentric performance catapulted Disney's theme park ride-turned-movie into a global phenomenon. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl took over $653 million in worldwide box office. And that's before the sales of the DVDs, UMDs, video games and other merchandise tie-ins, most of which came later, because no one, not even Disney, expected the film to become a blockbuster.

With Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, the first of two sequels, now in theaters, Disney has released an onslaught of Pirates merchandise this time around. Performance Design Products has A Pirate's Life for Me face armor for PSP, a Pirate's Tiller controller for PlayStation 2, and the Davy Jones' Locker accessory pack.

On the video game side, that includes portable games from Buena Vista Games based on the film for PSP, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Advance. Bethesda Softworks, which inked a movie licensing deal for the first film before it became a blockbuster, has an original PlayStation 2 and PC game, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow, out now. It's the only game to include both the likeness and the voice of Depp.

Depp, who worked with the film's screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio to ensure the game's dialog was in character, provided four hours of original voicework for the game. The Legend of Jack Sparrow takes place outside of the scope of the new film, and introduces original adventures that took place before the events of the first film, as well as new retellings of events from the first film. The game's story unfolds through Captain Jack Sparrow's interpretation of events, which means what actually happened in the film doesn't always happen in the game.

One of the reasons Depp agreed to make his first foray into interactive entertainment is because he loves this character. He's even said he's open to the idea of doing additional films beyond this trilogy.

"I like everything about playing him," said Depp. "He's just good fun to play. Ted (Elliott), Terry (Rossio), and Gore (Verbinski) set a course in terms of the story and all of that. You take the solid bones of that structure and get to run with it a little bit and play around with it a little bit. You get to add stuff and try things... and get away with it. I've been very lucky so far. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to him after Pirates 1. There was a lot more fun to be had."