Forecasting Success

The smashing success of Walt Disney Co.'s new movie,Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man's Chest, underscored once again for those of us at RealWeather that our clients have a lot riding on our weather forecasts. In the first weekend showing, this sequel to the 2003 hit The Curse of the Black Pearl grossed an estimated $132 million in theaters in North America, a new record. We provided approximately 400 forecasts during the year that this film and the second sequel were being shot on locations in the Atlantic and Caribbean. The second sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End will be released in summer 2007.

As those numbers suggest, our forecasts were in great demand. "Because of the thousands of dollars we have invested in every minute, it becomes absolutely critical to have the most accurate forecasts available," Will White, the Production Boat Coordinator. "That's what you provided..."
Said Marine Coordinator Dan Malone: "I always carried your latest forecast in my pocket ready to go!"

The entire production was unprecedented in scope, with much of the filming done at sea, rather than in a tank. Our forecasts permitted film production personnel to coordinate offshore filming operations that were safe for both cast and crew. These operations included creation of special underwater effects and execution of real sailing maneuvers on the ships. The principal Tall Ships, Sloop Providence and HMS Bounty, used in the two sequels were sailed to their Disney film locations in the Gulf of Mexico, Lesser Antilles, and Bahamas, on RealWeather forecasts that enabled them to arrive safely and ahead of schedule from different ports under different sailing conditions over 8,000 miles of ocean and open seas.

This was RealWeather's most extensive and demanding series of movie-related forecasts since we provided weather for the passage in 2002 of the Tall Ship, HMS Rose, from Newport to San Diego, where it was the star of the hit move, Master and Commander - the Far Side of the World. We earned high marks for those forecasts also. "January is no time for a three-masted, square-rigged ship to be in the North Atlantic," said its captain. We needed quality weather forecasts.