While fans have spotted the most obvious and hyped celebrity cameo in the film (Beatles icon Sir Paul McCarthy), there may have been another big celebrity who makes quite an unsual appearance in Dead Men Tell No Tales: one of the biggest stars on one the biggest TV shows around: The Walking Dead.
Read on for the SPOILER-FILLED theory on how Pirates of the Caribbean 5 may have dropped a nice Walking Dead Easter egg into its story – and how it forms a major connection between the two.
Early on in Dead Men tell No Tales, Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow finds himself (not surprisingly) in the frying pan again, captured alongside suspected witch Carina Smith (Kaya Scodelario) and slated for execution. Carina gets selected for death by hanging; Jack, on the other hand, gets senteced to die by a new invention: the guillitone.
Jack gets hauled onto the stage and locked into the guillitone, still unaware of what, exactly, the death machine even does. He quickly gets the picture, however, when he looks into the basket in front of him, and notices that it’s filled with severed heads!
The camera gives us the briefest shot of the heads in the basket – and this is where the supposed Walking Dead connection comes in: one of the heads looks suspiciously like Walking Dead star, Andrew Lincoln! After Comicbook.com staff first got hint of the possible Easter egg, additional staff went into Pirates 5 for a second look. The moment is so quick that it’s hard to confirm, but it definitely isn’t outside the realm of possiblity.
For fans of both franchises may deduce, there are other recent events that add more smoke onto this possible fire…
The reason there is major suspicion of Pirates working an Andrew Licoln severed head gag into the mix is because The Walking Dead already did it first!
In The Walking Dead season 6, Rick Grimes and Co. try to fool the malcious Saviors into thinking they’ve killed Gregory, leader of The Hilltop, by delivering his severed head. In order to pull the ruse off, Rick and Co. must pick a head that looks close enough to Gergory out of a lineup. One of the heads in that lineup was sculpted after Johnny Depp! That Easter egg became a big headline, and the famous Depp head eventually became part of Walking Dead star Norman Reedus’ collection of memorabilia from the show.
If Pirates of the Caribbean wanted to have a little fun in responding to The Walking Dead, having a sculpt of Andrew Lincoln’s severed head show up onscreen would be a fun little ‘clap back’ at the show. So how legit is the Easter egg? Comicbook.com has reached out to parties at both The Walking Dead and Disney. The Walking Dead people we’ve spoken to don’t seem to know anything about it; we have yet to hear any official response from Disney.
The Walking Dead will return for its eighth season in October of 2017. The first trailer is expected to arrive at San Diego Comic Con in July. For complete coverage and insider info all off-season long, follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter.
Everything about the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is big: the hats, the sword battles, Johnny Depp’s eyeliner, and of course, the budgets — including one very specific budget. While some might scoff at the price tag for the two Gore Verbinski–directed follow-ups to the original Pirates ($225 million for Dead Man’s Chest and $300 million for At World’s End), those people clearly don’t know how much food it takes to feed pretend swashbucklers. According to Jack Davenport, who played the white-wigged, Jack Sparrow foil, Commodore James Norrington, the snack budget on the 2006 and 2007 sequels was quite astounding. Davenport recounted to The Hollywood Reporter a conversation he had with the craft services chef about the snacks budget:
“He looked me square in the eye and said ‘essentially unlimited.’ I was like ‘what does that mean?’ He was like ‘I don’t know, $2 million.’ I was like ‘For snacks?’ And he was like ‘yeah?’
While Davenport was quick to point out that this might not be as frivolous as it sounds — there were a lot of hungry people working both behind and in front of the cameras on those blockbusters — we can’t help but wonder how much of that money was dedicated to disappearing bottles of rum.
Despite any talk of franchise fatigue at the domestic box office, or a splattering from Rotten Tomatoes, the larger story for Disney’s Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is told in its global tally, which as of this morning has a worldwide start of $326 million, the 20th-best worldwide debut of all time.
According to Deadline film finance sources, the consensus is that Pirates 5 is looking forward to an estimated profit north of $280M after all revenue streams are tabulated. This is based off an industry-projected final global box office haul of $850M. Keep in mind, Japan hasn’t opened yet, and that territory delivered the franchise’s best grosses out of any foreign country — re On Stranger Tides ($91M), At World’s End ($91M) and the first movie Curse Of The Black Pearl ($60M). Disney always knew that domestic wasn’t going to be that strong for Dead Men Tell No Tales, especially after On Stranger Tides six years agodelivered only 23% of its $1.045 billion global tally from domestic.
Our profit estimations for Pirates 5 aren’t attributed to Disney sources.
The added win here for Disney with Pirates 5 is how the $4.05 billion Pirates seriesspurs its theme park and merchandise businesses, something other major studios can’t count on with their franchises. Recently, the Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association attributed the $118 billion made in 2016 movie/entertainment global retail toy revenue to the year-round sale of Star Wars product for The Force Awakens and Rogue One. We currently hear that Pirates Of The Caribbean merchandise revenue is estimated at $65M (some think that number is too low), with Asian venues like Shanghai Disney Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland key drivers.
Paramount
With these long-in-the-tooth franchises waning sequel by sequel at the domestic B.O. — think Pirates, Transformers, Fast And The Furious — it’s the burgeoning markets and emerging middle classes overseas that enable Hollywood to keep making these tentpoles, even as U.S./Canada audiences arguably lose interest as underscored by their wallets. When building these titles financially, the majors acknowledge that the U.S. represents 4% of the world’s 7.5 billion population.
With $180.7M over four days, the just-ended Memorial Day weekend was the lowest in two decades, down 42% from the 2013 high of $314.2M. Versus last year, close to $25M was missing from this year’s holiday marketplace thanks to the soft Pirates 5 opening($78.4M over four days) and Baywatch‘s blowout($27.7M over five days). A month ago, both were projected at $90M-$100M and $45M-$50M, respectively in their openings, but when sour Rotten Tomatoes scores hit, it impacted both pics’ estimates.
Some have argued not to lump Pirates 5 and Baywatch in the same sentence in the Memorial Day frame; the latter is bound to lose significantly more money. But the bigger point here is the overall franchise fatigue taking place stateside following last weekend’s $36.1M start for Alien: Covenant (Baywatch, had it worked, would have certainly been a new cinematic series). Wonder Woman, though connected to DC, offers something new and fresh to moviegoers in that it’s arguably the first female comic-book superhero property to work onscreen. The Rotten Tomatoes rating for the Gal Gadot movie is currently at 97% off 64 reviews, and if that score can maintain itself, it could potentially push the pic’s domestic opening to $95M — though Warner Bros still sees it between $65M-$75M.
In recent years, Disney is the only major studio in town that can win on all fronts with its Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, live action-group and animation labels: beaming A- or higher CinemaScores, awesome B.O. results, and glorious certified ruby red Rotten Tomatoes ratings. Truly, they are the envy of all. However, stateside critics have loathed Pirates since the second installment, with the most recent one registering the lowest at 31% Rotten, and Disney has yet to turn that boat around. Of the five movies, Pirates 5 reps the fourth-best stateside opening. Some attribute the ease here to marketing, others to Johnny Depp and his controversial image which can turn off moms, but the fact is that at the end of this weekend, Disney is yo-ho-ho-ing all the way to the bank.
While box office analysts love to take digs that this summer at $777.9M is down 9% versus last year through its first four weekends, and that Memorial Day was in shambles, overall the theatrical marketplace in the U.S. and Canada this year is healthy, counting $4.4B to date per comScore, 2% ahead of 2016’s banner year which yielded $11.4B.
Scroll down to see this weekend’s Memorial Day actual box office figures.
‘Pirates’ Tells Profit Tale
Stream
Est. costs
Est. revenue
Est. profit
Domestic B.O.
$175M
Foreign B.O.
$650M
Worldwide B.O.
$825M
Domestic Rental
$96M
Foreign Rental
$292M
Net Global Home Entertainment
$130M-$140M
Net Global TV
$75M
Merchandise
$65M+
Est. Total Revenue
$663M+
Production Cost
$230M
Global P&A
$150M
Total Costs*
$380M
Est. Profit
$283M+
*before profits, residuals, participations
Final weekend actuals for Memorial Day weekend, per ComScore
1.). Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (DIS), 4,276 theaters / 3-day cume: $62.9M / Per screen average: $$14,729 / 4-day cume: $78.4M / Per screen: $18,353 / Wk 1
2.). The Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (DIS), 3,871 theaters (-476) / 3-day cume: $20.9M / Per screen: $5,401 / 4-day cume: $27.1M / Per screen: $7,024 / Total cume: $340.5M / Wk 4
3.). Baywatch (PAR), 3,647 theaters / 3-day cume: $18.5M / Per screen: $5,074/ 4-day cume: $23.1M / Per screen: $6,336 / Total cume: $27.7M (Wednesday bow) / Wk 1
Pokémon Cobalt and Amethyst is a new Minecraft mod that takes the intersection of the two gaming worlds to an entirely new level.
If a game allows mods, you can be sure a fair share of them will be Pokémon-inspired. And while there are no shortage of similar projects created using Minecraft, Cobalt and Amethyst is by far and away one of the most ambitious. It’s also one of the more unique for being a map rather than a mod, meaning that anyone who has the vanilla Minecraft version 1.8.8 can simply download it and begin playing.
Cobalt and Amethyst doesn’t just insert creatures and mechanics from the series into Minecraft either, it creates an entirely new Pokémon adventure. According to the creators behind the project, the story lasts over 60 hours and includes 136 Pokémon, mixing creatures from all over the series. While the map is supposed to be reminiscent of the original Game Boy versions, using classic sound effects and borrowing some of the music, the actual playable campaign is completely different.
The game itself isn’t entirely pretty, but the depth of the world building is impressive in its own right. According to its lead producer, Phoenix SC, the map includes everything from battling, capturing, and training Pokémon to challenging individual Gym Leaders.
“The map places itself in a never-before-seen region, featuring a new set of 136 Pokémon and a new story dominated by an antagonist threatening to release a Legendary darkness that demands tribute. It is your task to seek the truth with the help of the region’s Professor and your rival – either capture it before it’s too late, or take Team Tempest down while saving the lives of those closest to you.”
The team behind the map have even started putting together a walk through for the entire game. Phoenix SC claims to have recently beaten the game in approximately 70 hours with a team of Pokémon all around level 50. Which is nothing when you realize the project took nearly three years to complete.
You can download the Cobalt and Amethyst map here.
It’s no fantasy land or sci-fi expanse, but it’s still impressive: a team of Minecraft builders are recreating the centre of Chicago, one block at a time.
Their work isn’t done, but what’s there is very impressive, as it captures everything, from building details to street signs to trees on the sidewalk.
It’s called The Loop, and if you want to try it out you can download it here.
Good news! The Nintendo Switch gets its own version of Minecraft today, and it’s good. In fact, it’s made me want to play Minecraft more than I have in a long time.
Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition comes out this afternoon on the Nintendo eShop, with a physical version coming “at a later date.” Nintendo sent us codes a couple days ago, and I’ve played a few hours of the game. I’ve had a great time. I mean, of course I have! It’s Minecraft. I like Minecraft on PC, on consoles, and even in virtual reality. It feels particularly at home on the Switch, however, and I can actually see myself playing more of this version than I have since I first bought the game on PC all those years ago.
For the most part, this version of Minecraft isn’t particularly different from other console versions of the game. It runs at 60fps docked and undocked, and both versions look crisp and play well. The draw distance is noticeably longer when docked, but only if you put screenshots of the two versions side by side.
This GIF compresses the image quality, but should give you a sense of the draw distance.
It supports online play for up to eight players, and split-screen local play for up to four. It comes with the standard survival mode as well as creative mode, which lets you freely build things without worrying about getting it blown up by a creeper, and minigames like battle mode, where players duke it out for bragging rights.
Like the Wii U version, the Switch version comes with a Mario texture pack, as well as a bunch of Mario character skins. There’s also a pretty cool pre-made Mario-themed world you can load up, which you can see in the screenshots up top.
Above: Daisy and Rosalina prepare to settle this thing once and for all.
Minecraft has always been a lot of fun in multiplayer, and I love the idea of local Minecraft co-op in particular. (I remember writing this article about how much I liked concept waaaaaaay back when the idea of playing Minecraft on a game console was novel.) Switch split-screen works fine both docked and undocked, at least with two players. I was able to pop the Switch out of its dock and my two-player split-screen game kept going at what looked like a solid 60fps.
Online multiplayer is no-frills but functional, at least as far as I’ve tested. I invited my colleague Eric Van Allen into my game, by which I mean I sent him a DM using our work chat and asked him to join. As far as I can see, there’s no way to invite someone to your game using the actual game interface—you simply see which of your friends are actively in a game and decide if you want to join them. Eric picked my game from under the “Join” tab in the main menu and voila! We were playing Minecraft together.
Eric, on his avatar: “I mean, if they give me the option to play Bowser, I’m gonna play Bowser.”
There’s no built-in voice or text chat, or even any sort of emote system, so you’ll have to coordinate communication using an outside chat or voice service. This version of Minecraft also doesn’t take advantage of some of the Switch’s other features: Each player needs a full controller, so you can’t play the game in split-screen with individual joy-con controllers, nor is there any touch screen functionality when in handheld mode. Those things haven’t bothered me much, though I am concerned about the lack of cloud saves and the Switch’s continued lack of way to backup your saved games. Bad enough that I might lose my Zelda save if I break or lose my Switch, now I’ll also lose all my new Minecraft creations! The more games the Switch gets, the more urgently Nintendo needs to add some sort of backup functionality.
Let’s put all of those bullet points and feature comparisons down for a minute, though. I really like playing Minecraft on Switch. In fact, I can easily see it becoming one of my most-played Switch games. It’s fine on the big screen, and easier to play split-screen that way. That’s nothing I haven’t seen before. But this game is also fantastic on the go, and the Switch does on-the-go Minecraft better than I’ve ever seen. Tablet and phone versions don’t control in a way I like, unless I want to bring along an external game controller. The Vita version is fine, but doesn’t run all that well. The Switch version finally hits a sweet spot between performance, ease of use, and controls. It also looks terrific on the Switch’s screen. The fact that you can play split-screen with a friend on the go is just a bonus.
My current house isn’t as cool as anything in that massive Mario world, but whatever, it’s mine and I love it.
The Wii U got Minecraft too late. It was such an obvious fit for the console, but by the time a port arrived in late 2015, the Wii U was already on life support. Mojang apparently decided not to make the same mistake with the Switch, and I’m glad for it. All they really needed to do here was put a good version of Minecraft on the Switch, and that’s what they’ve done. It’s a great game, made much better by the Switch’s portability. For the first time in years, I think I’m going to actually sink some time into Minecraft again.
