Marketing?

The movie definitely was successful in playing to a large audience. However, the products are a different story. Unfortunately, I think Disney cheapened the success of the movie with the sequels and the vast array of products they produced. Because of this, I feel that the novelty of the series was quickly lost -It got old fast, because of the marketing approach. A feeling of 'Here comes another Pirates of the Caribbean movie/product' is the general consensus among my friends. Though disney is famous for this over-done merchandising, I believe that the series would have done better if they had spent more time innovating quality novel products and marketing them, (like a really good video-game, one set of action figures, ect.) rather than spewing out as many different dollar-store products as possible.

Who is the Target Audience?

Pirates of the Caribbean was a multi-million dollar project. This isn't surprising considering the special effects, explosions and A-list actors. It's multi-faceted story line and 3-dimensional characters make it enjoyable for, well - almost anybody.

This is why I think that it was so successful at the box office. It has such a large audience. It's geared towards family fun, while still having enough scandal and adventure to entertain your average adult, and enough heroic Orlando Bloom to swoon any adolescent girl.