"Hello Beastie"

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest sold 5 million copies on Tuesday, its first day on DVD. I know that I was among those that bought it. I sprung for the two-disc set, so I could have all the making-of featurettes and the like. We watched it that night, as, I'm sure, did the other people who picked it up. While I enjoyed it more the second time around (you'll remember that we weren't exactly bowled over by it in the theater), I was still struck by how hard the film was trying to be better than the first. By my opinion, it can't be, simply because the first Pirates was so new, fresh and clever.
Anyway, the next Pirates movie, At World's End, is still in production, and is slated for release on Memorial Day weekend next year. That's not too far away. One of the writers, who was quoted on the web today, said that they had a hard time coming up with an appropriate ending for the trilogy, as it needed to be bigger and better, since it's ending three films instead of just one. I bet that's truer than most people would recognize. They've certainly built up a lot of expectations for the film, based on nothing more than how well received the first two were. I don't envy them that writers' task!