It had so many things against it- movie critics panned it before it even began filming because it was a movie based on a theme park attraction; Disney Studios executives hated Johnny Depp's portrayal of Jack Sparrow; some people pointed out that movies based on pirates frequently failed. Despite all this, however, the public came out in droves to see the film, surprising the industry, McDonald's and even Disney itself. McDonald's had paid to sponsor the film, but only displayed posters and showed clips from the film during commercials. Unbelievably, they had no toys, cups or anything else to sell from the film. (They would make up for this when the sequel premiered.) Disney had licensed very little from the film at all, just throwing it out there to see what would happen. Only after it knew it had a hit on its hands did the normal hype and merchandise spring forth. A multi-billion Dollar franchise had exploded, seemingly out of nowhere.
