In the early 18th century, Governor Weatherby Swann and his daughter, Elizabeth, sail aboard HMS Dauntless with Lieutenant Norrington and his crew. They recover a shipwreck survivor, a boy named Will Turner. Elizabeth takes a gold medallion from around Will's neck, before seeing a ship with black sails. Eight years later in Port Royal, Jamaica, Norrington is promoted to commodore. While the promotion ceremony is taking place, the pirate captain Jack Sparrow arrives in Port Royal. After the ceremony, Norrington proposes to Elizabeth. Due to her tight-fitting corset, she faints and falls into the ocean, which causes the medallion she is carrying to emit a pulse. Jack rescues Elizabeth before escaping from Norrington, who has identified him as a pirate. Will encounters Jack and duels him until Jack is captured and imprisoned.

That night, Port Royal is attacked by the pirate crew of the Black Pearl, the ship Elizabeth saw years earlier. The pirates are searching for the medallion, and take Elizabeth aboard the ship to meet Captain Barbossa. He explains that the medallion is one of 882 gold pieces used to bribe Hernán Cortés to stop his slaughter of the Aztecs. Because of Cortés's greed, the Aztec gods placed a curse upon the gold. Barbossa's crew found the gold at Isla de Muerta, but after spending it, they became immortal zombies. To lift the curse, the crew must return all the gold with an offering of blood from each member. The only member whose blood hasn't been paid yet is "Bootstrap Bill", who was lost to the sea. Barbossa intends to use Elizabeth's blood for the ritual, as he believes her to be Bootstrap's child that he gave the last gold piece to.

To save Elizabeth, Will frees Jack from prison. They stage an attempt to steal the Dauntless, which prompts Norrington and his crew to pursue them on HMS Interceptor. Jack and Will then sneak onto the Interceptor and escape. They head to Tortuga to find Joshamee Gibbs and recruit a crew. On Isla de Muerta, Jack and Will creep into the treasure grotto, where Barbossa fails to lift the curse with Elizabeth's blood. Will and Elizabeth flee with one of the medallions on the Interceptor, while Jack is captured by Barbossa and locked up aboard the Pearl. A battle ensues between the Pearl and the Interceptor. Will realizes that Barbossa needs his blood for the rite, because Bootstrap was his father, and he surrenders himself to ensure Elizabeth's freedom. Barbossa destroys the Interceptor, takes its crew prisoner, then deposits Jack and Elizabeth on a deserted island. Elizabeth creates a smoke signal, which allows the Navy to find and rescue them. Elizabeth then accepts Norrington's marriage proposal on the condition that he rescue Will from Barbossa.

That night, Jack and Norrington make a plan to ambush the pirates at Isla de Muerta. Norrington, however, plans to attack the pirates himself, and Jack convinces Barbossa to refrain from lifting the curse until after they have killed Norrington's men. Having anticipated the battle to come, Jack secretly palms a medallion so he can be immortal. He then frees Will and duels Barbossa. As Norrington's crew battle the immortal pirates, Elizabeth slips away to free Jack's crew, who flee on the Pearl, leaving her to save Will and Jack by herself. After Elizabeth helps defeat some of Barbossa's crewmen, Jack shoots Barbossa just as Will returns the last of the medallions with their blood, which lifts the curse. Now mortal, Barbossa dies from Jack's gunshot, and the rest of Barbossa's crew are killed or surrender.

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In 2001, Jay Wolpert wrote a script based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was based on a story created by the Walt Disney Studios executives Brigham Taylor, Michael Haynes, and Josh Harmon. This story featured Will Turner as a prison guard who releases Sparrow to rescue Elizabeth, who is being held for ransom by Captain Blackheart. By March 2002, Disney brought Stuart Beattie in to rewrite the script because of his knowledge of piracy. Beattie stated that he talked about making a pirate film based on the ride while tossing a Frisbee with a friend, and wrote a first draft titled "Quest for the Caribbean" while on exchange to Oregon State University in 1991.

Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio notably thought about a pirate film based on the ride during the early 1990s, having pitched the idea after completing work on the 1992 film Aladdin as a premise to studio executives who were not interested at the time. Undeterred, the writing team refused to give up the dream, waiting for a studio to pick up their take on a pirate tale. Having worked with Disney on Aladdin and the 2002 film Treasure Planet, among other successful films, Elliott and Rossio were also brought in for Pirates of the Caribbean to give it a "more supernatural spin". Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were the final writers to receive screenplay credit, while all four writers received story credits.

When Dick Cook managed to convince producer Jerry Bruckheimer to join the project, he rejected Jay Wolpert's script because it was "a straight pirate movie." Later in March 2002, Bruckheimer brought Elliott and Rossio, who suggested making a supernatural curse—as described in the opening narration of the ride—the film's plot.

Disney was unsure whether to release the film in theaters or direct-to-video. The studio was interested in Matthew McConaughey as Sparrow because of his resemblance to Burt Lancaster, who had inspired that script's interpretation of the character. If they chose to release it direct-to-video, Christopher Walken or Cary Elwes would have been their first choice.

In May 2002, Gore Verbinski signed on to direct Pirates of the Caribbean. He was attracted to the idea of using modern technology to resurrect a genre that had disappeared after the Golden Age of Hollywood. He recalled his childhood memories of the ride, feeling the film was an opportunity to pay tribute to the "scary and funny" tone of it.

Although Cook had been a strong proponent of adapting Disney's rides into films, the box-office failure of The Country Bears (2002) made Michael Eisner attempt to shut down produ…

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The musical score was composed by Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer. Zimmer also served as the music producer. Seven other composers, including Geoff Zanelli and Ramin Djawadi, received credit for "additional music". Verbinski oversaw the score with Badelt and Zimmer, who headed 15 composers to finish it quickly.

Composer Alan Silvestri, who had collaborated with Verbinski on Mouse Hunt and The Mexican, was originally hired to write the film's score. Citing creative differences with Bruckheimer, Silvestri left the project before recording any material. Verbinski and Bruckheimer decided to go with Zimmer's team instead, who were frequent collaborators on their productions. Zimmer declined to do the bulk of the composing, as he was busy scoring The Last Samurai. As a result, he referred Verbinski to Klaus Badelt, a relatively new composer who had been a part of Remote Control Productions, known as Media Ventures at the time, for three years. Zimmer however ended up collaborating with Badelt to write most of the score's primary themes. Zimmer said he wrote most of the music in the space of one night, and then recorded them in an all-synthesized demo credited to him. This demo presents three of the score's themes and motifs, concluding with an early version of "He's A Pirate" which differs from the final cue and includes a development of a melody Zimmer wrote for the score to Drop Zone.

The song Elizabeth Swann sings in the opening of the film as a child, and then later on the island marooned with Jack Sparrow, is called "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)'". It was written by George Bruns with lyrics by Xavier "X" Atencio. It is the song heard throughout the attraction Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland and Magic Kingdom.