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.
Pirates of the Caribbean Allegedly Spent $2 Million on Snacks for the Cast and Crew