"We wrote a character that he would want to play:" Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio talk about Johnny Depp, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, and its sequels

Lots of POTC news this week! Don’t miss the fantastic article by Maura Reilly, called “Report from The Pirates Panel: Dead Man’s Chest,” which DeepinDepp posted on the News & Views forum. It contains the full transcript of a panel discussion at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood on January 11, 2005, where speakers included some of the POTC production staff, scriptwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and pirate extraordinaire Lee Arenberg, who played Pintel. The discussion ranges from adapting the theme park ride to how Lee Arenberg got cast (“I always say I was really lucky they couldn’t find short, bald and crazy eyed in London,” Arenberg confides) to how much money the Black Pearl’s Porta Potties might fetch on Ebay. Ted and Terry talk about how excited they were to learn that Johnny Depp was “circling the project” and how Johnny’s involvement freed their imaginations. Ted says, “It gave us license to write the character, keeping in mind the kinds of things Johnny Depp likes to do and is willing to do. So there was a greater freedom really. Knowing that we had to get him, we wrote a character that he would want to play.” Ted and Terry also confirm that the second movie will be called DEAD MAN’S CHEST–and not TREASURE OF THE LOST ABYSS, as was widely reported.