When audiences think of Disney now, it is easy to imagine the biggest pop culture institution in the world. They own some of the biggest brand names in Hollywood history, and a new generation of audiences have only known a world where Star Wars and Marvel were Disney properties. Disney has always been a family-friendly company and has often made films attempting to appeal to people of all ages and genders, but at the turn of the 21st century, they found themselves in an odd place. The company wanted to compete with the rising action/fantasy franchises that were popping up at other studios like Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and The Mummy to name a few. They needed to get those young adult audiences who were used to seeing Disney as a kid’s product.

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Pirates of the Caribbean was a major win for the studio, as they were able to turn a pre-existing Disney IP from one of their classic theme park rides into an action blockbuster franchise that outgrossed films from The Matrix, Terminator, and the X-Men series in 2003. The demand for Pirates of the Caribbean was so great and caught Disney by surprise, as they had finally found themselves in the action movie business.

The Success of the Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise

     Walt Disney Pictures

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest broke the record set by Spider-Man for the biggest opening weekend of all time, and the following film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End broke the Memorial Day weekend box office record and was the highest grossing of 2007 worldwide. While Disney would eventually begin development on a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, they also wanted to find a new franchise.

Disney had attempted to make action films before with 1990’s Dick Tracy and 1991’s The Rocketeer, or superhero-inspired films based on cartoons like 1999’s Inspector Gadget or 2007’s Underdog, but they tended to skew young and have a more comedic and silly twist. They wanted an action franchise that could compete with the other studios, ones that kids would want advertised on their lunchboxes and even ones teenagers would want to see and be considered cool.

This eventually led to them purchasing Marvel Comics in 2009 and acquiring Lucasfilm in 2012. Yet the road to get to this point was fascinating, as following Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and the release of The Avengers, Disney made a few big swings at finding their next massive action franchise, and all were notable box office disappointments. Here is a rundown of Disney’s biggest attempts to find their next Pirates of the Caribbean-like franchise.

The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

     Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

2010 saw Disney release three big-budget action films in an attempt to find that Pirates of the Caribbean magic, and the first was the most blatant attempt of all, the film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Based on the popular video game series, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time very much emphasized in its marketing that it was from Pirates of the Caribbean producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Combine that with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire director Mike Newel and star Jake Gyllenhaal, and the movie seemed to have everything Disney needed for its next big action franchise, hoping it could do for video games what Pirates of the Caribbean did for theme parks.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was released on Memorial Day weekend, similar to the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End in 2007. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time received negative reviews from critics and grossed $30 million in its opening weekend, coming in at number three at the box office behind Shrek Forever After and Sex and the City 2. The movie ended up grossing just $90 million domestically, and while it grossed $336 worldwide, it was paltry compared to its $200 million budget.

Disney’s attempts at aiming for a young boy audience were also undermined by Iron Man 2, which had opened just three weeks before Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. While Disney acquired Marvel Studios in 2009, Paramount Pictures still owned the film distribution rights to the MCU films until Iron Man 3. This likely motivated Disney to purchase the distribution rights for The Avengers and Iron Man 3 from Paramount Pictures, as the writing was on the wall that they would need this franchise sooner rather than later.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

In Disney’s attempts to chase after the next Pirates of the Caribbean film series, they did find success with the National Treasure movies. 2004’s National Treasure and 2007 National Treasure: Book Of Secrets were both box office hits and felt like a good balance of finding a high-concept action-adventure family film franchise. One would assume in 2010 that they would release National Treasure 3. Instead, they got the director, producer, and star of the National Treasure movies to make The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a big-budget reimagining of a popular Mickey Mouse short from Fantasia.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in many ways is Disney merging their National Treasure formula with their emerging live-action reimagining of classic animated stories (Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland had opened four months prior). However, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice did not appeal to any audience, be it young viewers looking for an exciting fantasy action film or older moviegoers who had a connection to the original Disney short.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice cost $150 million dollars and brought in $17 million on its opening day, with the unfortunate luck of opening the same weekend as Inception. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice came in number three at the box office behind Inception and Despicable Me. It grossed $63 million domestically and $215 million worldwide while its budget was $150 million. Both Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice box office bombs were offset by Disney’s two other hits, Alice in Wonderland and Toy Story 3. Yet it seemed like producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s attempts to replicate both Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure were serious misfires.

Tron: Legacy

The first of these films not produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Disney looked through their back catalog of classic films to see if anything would work as a big action spectacle. They found one in Tron, a 1982 film that had gained a massive cult following since its release due to its groundbreaking use of visual effects. While a box office disappointment for Disney at the time, they seemed to think the time was now right for a sequel to the ’80s movie.

Tron: Legacy got a major push from Disney with a heavy marketing campaign. The film’s first teaser announcement premiered at Comic-Con in 2008, before the movie was even greenlit. It got a variety of television advertisements, a soundtrack by the popular band Daft Punk with a massive 90-piece orchestra, and major integration into the various Disney theme parks around the world. Disney even had an animated series, Tron: Uprising in development because they were so confident the film would be a hit during the holiday season. They set it for the same weekend that Avatar debuted, and heavily promoted the 3D hoping it would be a similar cultural event.

While the biggest hit of any film on this rundown, the movie still underperformed. Tron: Legacy grossed $172 million domestically, just barely beating its $170 million budget. Though Tron: Legacy did gross $400 million worldwide, Disney seemed to write off the film as a box office disappointment. While the movie, like the original, did grow a cult following and there have been talks of a sequel ever since, it seems unlikely, as it is no longer a priority for the studio. They don’t need a third Tron movie because they have plenty of MCU and Star Wars films.

John Carter

John Carter is, in many ways, the turning point for all of this. John Carter had a reported budget of $250 million, and Disney said it had to gross $700 million to turn a profit. Instead, the film opened to $30 million and grossed $73 million domestically with a $284 million worldwide total. Disney took a $200 million write-off for the film just two weeks into its release, and it is one of the biggest box office bombs in history.

Attempts to develop John Carter as a feature film had stretched back to 1931, and Disney originally developed it in the 1950s. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom book series was one of the most influential pieces of science fiction and inspired countless properties from Star Wars and Avatar to the Superman character. Disney acquired the film rights back in 2008, right as the studio was looking for a new high-profile action franchise; Andrew Stanton, who directed the critically acclaimed and box office Pixar films Finding Nemo and WALL-E, was given the highly anticipated project and originally planned an epic trilogy of films.

John Carter was released two months before The Avengers, which would be the first Marvel movie distributed by Disney since the acquisition of Marvel in 2009. The Avengers broke box office records and went on to become the highest-grossing film of 2012, a sharp contrast to John Carter. That very same year, Disney acquired Lucasfilm and by extension Star Wars. Despite Burroughs’ John Carter character inspiring Star Wars, by the time it reached the big screen it ironically felt derivative of Star Wars. Disney now no longer needed their own Star Wars — they had the real thing.

The Lone Ranger

If John Carter was the turning point for Disney, The Lone Ranger was the final nail in the coffin for their attempts to make a new franchise. The Lone Ranger in many ways is one of the most blatant attempts at recapturing that Pirates of the Caribbean magic, as it reteamed director Gore Verbinski, writers Ted Elliot and Terry Russo, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and star Johnny Depp on another action-comedy picture in a film genre that seemed to have lost popularity. The Pirates of the Caribbean logo was even used in the film’s trailer as a sort of tagline to let audiences know it was the same creative team.

Disney first acquired The Lone Ranger rights in 2008, the year after Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End opened. The movie was in development for years and faced numerous rewrites due to budget cuts, as the film’s budget ballooned to over $250 million. The film was delayed multiple times and finally got the budget under control, but from the moment the movie started its marketing, it became clear Disney had a bomb on their hands.

The first trailer for the film was quickly overshadowed by the trailer for Man of Steel which premiered online a few hours later. It was set to be the big Fourth of July movie that weekend, and ended up coming in second place at the box office behind Despicable Me 2 by a very wide margin, as that film grossed $143 million over the Fourth of July weekend while The Lone Ranger brought in $48 million. The Lone Ranger finished its domestic run with $89 million and worldwide $260 million.

By this point, the writing was on the wall. The Avengers had just been released the year prior, Iron Man 3 was the biggest movie of the summer in 2013, and Disney had four different Marvel projects set for release between then and 2015: Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Ant-Man.

Earlier that year, J.J. Abrams was announced to be the director of Star Wars Episode VII, and they made their plans known that not only would they continue with another trilogy of films but Star Wars spin-off movies and series. From 2015 to 2019, the number one highest-grossing film was either an MCU film or a Star Wars movie. Those two, in addition to Pixar, Disney animation, and remakes of classic animated movies, set Disney up for the next decade of box office domination. They simply didn’t need another Pirates of the Caribbean.