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Showing posts from May, 2011

‘Pirates of the Caribbean’: ILM delivers mermaids who are both beauty and beast

"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" (Disney) When Oscar-nominated director Rob Marshall came aboard as the new captain of the “ Pirates of the Caribbean ” franchise, he was immediately possessed by the siren call of one particular element in the script — beautiful mermaids. No one needs to explain cinematic possibilities of dangerous lust and predatory women to the director of “ Chicago ” and “ Memoirs of a Geisha ,” and when he took over the Disney buccaneer franchise he zeroed in on the script’s presentation of the magical aquatic creatures as a place to make his mark. “They are beautiful, seductive women but they use that beauty to lure men to their deaths,” Marshall said with an approving grin. “They are women but they are also animal. These are creatures and carnivores and they want to feed.” And when they feed, sailors in salt water are the main course. Marshall made the mermaids a paramount priority for Ben Snow of Industrial Light & Mag