"Pirates" Cruising Towards $1 Billion

"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" has grossed $579.1 mil overseas and $991.9 million worldwide. By next weekend, it will have joined "Titantic" ($1.85 billion) and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" ($1.12 billion) as only the third film in history to gross $1 billion worldwide at the box office. Then of course it will gross a MINIMUM of $500 million on DVD worldwide (that is a VERY conservative figure). And then there's next summer's sequel, which will presumably gross another $1 billion or more at the movies and on DVD. So you're looking at a trilogy of films that will easily top $3 billion. And it all rests squarely on the shoulders of Johnny Depp. Now all we ever hear is how movie stars are ridiculously overpaid. So exactly how much would Depp have to be paid for these movies before we could accuse him of being overpaid? $200 million? $300 million? That still leaves $2.7 BILLION for the studio. So tell me again how superstars in blockbusters are killing the industry.