A Pirate’s Life For Me

Let's get one thing straight: we at Empire Online have been to a lot of premieres. If a film has premiered over here in the last five years or so then chances are we've been there, done that and made off with the free canap . But even we are overcome with a sense of mean-spirited envy at missing the truly mind-boggling premiere for Pirates Of The Caribbean at Disneyland this weekend. For the first time in 48 years, the theme park closed early to the public in order to accommodate the huge Hollywood event. Beginning at the end of a 900-foot red carpet -claimed to be the longest ever-, guests filtered past crowds in full-on pirate attire - or 'Caribbean Casual' as the invitation specified. The likes of Darryl Hannah, David Hasselhoff and Cuba Gooding jr, Jon Voight and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos were among the hearty old sea dogs to be greeted with cheers but it was shipmates Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp who caused the biggest stir with fans. Taking 500 people to organise, the six-hour premiere featured go-go dancing pirate girls, a sailing ship with full orchestra and stars arriving to the screening on pirate rafts as the audience sat facing a 90-foot screen, slap-bang in the middle of Tom Sawyer's Island. Ending with a spectacular fireworks display this was clearly the premiere event to attend and if Disney put even a third of the effort into the inevitable London premiere then it will definitely be one worth standing in the rain for.