Who Put Walt Disney Pictures' "Pirates" into Development?

[PragmaticIdealist]

Back in the '80's, the idea occurred to me to use Disneyland, and, specifically, "Pirates of the Caribbean", to help re-establish Walt Disney Pictures in the category of live-action.

I'm wondering, though, if the person who put the project into development at the studio had some special relationship with The Magic Kingdom.

Dick Cook seems like a likely candidate, but I really don't know.

[merlinjones]

The title had come and gone out of development in all departments for years. I worked on ideas for an animated version (with Joe Grant) way back in the late 80's-early 90's.

[Speedway]

This information is directly from Jason Surrell's Magic Kingdom to the Movies book, which is great.

Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio (no connections with the park) actually discussed a Pirates movie in their own personal time, and it was only when they realised how much material the ride at Disneyland had, they re-themed a basic Pirates movie to a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and pitched it to Disney. They weren't interested.

In 2000, a new executive team at the Studios realised the potential of Disney's theme park properties. They pitched the idea of PotC as a movie to Nina Jacobson, president of Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group. She was the first person to be completely enthusiastic about using theme park material for movies. X Atencio and Tony Baxter took the executives (Brigham Taylor, Michael Haines and Josh Harmon) on a walkthrough of the ride at Disneyland, and a screenwriter called Jay Wolpert developed the original script. Elliot and Rossio revised the script later on, when they were called back by Disney, and the rest is history.

There you go.