Each week Young Post takes a look at modern movie heroes and finds out what makes them tick ... this week, it's Captain Jack Sparrow, the outlandish star of the four Pirates of the Caribbean movies
Set-up
Captain Jack Sparrow is unique among movie heroes. No one had met him before his first successful screen outing in 2003. Unlike many movie heroes today, Captain Jack had not appeared in a novel, TV series or cartoon before he sailed into cinemas in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Actor Johnny Depp must have seen something special in the character when he first read the script. Few people would have expected a film adapted from a theme park ride - with an unheard-of central character - to become a massive hit.
Johnny and Jack
Depp is an actor who likes a challenge, but even he could not have seen that Captain Jack Sparrow would be his most unforgettable movie character.
The four films of the Pirates of the Caribbean series got steadily weaker, and it was only Depp's Captain Jack that saved the final one, On Stranger Tides (2011), from falling into the ocean and sinking without trace. As for Captain Jack, it's sad to think that we've probably seen the last of the outlandish pirate.