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Pirates of the Caribbean? Dead Man?s Chest?s 140 Minute Running Time: Clocking in at more than 2 ½ hours, Pirates 2 may be test the endurance of kids, but director Verbinski said the long running time was necessary. ?I think there is a lot of story. I think films end up at the length that they end up at. There is a whole lot of story in this movie. I think 13 year-old kids, based on the first movie, this is only six minutes longer than the first one.

There is a lot that they come back for. There is a lot of density that they appreciate and come back. And that was really helpful in looking at a blank page and saying, ?How do we make three movies??

You know, when you construct a character you want to feel like you can open a door and there is a whole movie behind that character or this character. Even though they are incidental characters, you can?t afford to tell their story in a particular movie. Those loose ends became assets. Bootstrap Bill, East End trading company and how was Johnny branded and all those things that you are looking at your loose ends of the first movie, they become, ?Why was this boy floating on a raft?? Well, at the end of the trilogy I want to understand that. That?s the fun part. The rest is just work.?

Special Challenges Presented by CGI Characters: ?The biggest challenge was were we going to lose Bill Nighy?s performance, his character, his acting? Because, really, you put actors together and you shoot a scene and you don?t want to drift away from that and get lost with the clay or the CG clay, so to speak, as you put all that stuff on him.

And there were a lot of challenges with Bill?s performance, because he has so much with his chin and there is no jaw line when you put those tentacles on. His profile is so strong and there really is no nose on Jones. So you have to do a lot of, ?What is he doing there? How does that translate into his tentacles and everything else??

We did a lot of split screen. The guys at ILM, Hal Hickel and John Knoll, they were fantastic in preserving Bill, and they were inspired by his performance. A lot of animation you are going to work from 12 basic facial impressions and you modify them to achieve your performance. They couldn?t do that with Bill because he never repeated anything and he was so completely unique and original - and all of that stuff sort of translated.?

Verbinski continued. ?I showed him pictures and he knew what he was. He showed up on set with dots on his face and a grey suit. Everyone else was dressed like pirates and he feels like he was a member of DEVO or something, and yet he completely commits to it. (Laughing) He would look at Stellan Skarsgard, who had four or five hours in a chair, and he wished that he was Stellan because at least he kind of knows what he?s getting. If you film Stellan in a scene, that?s it, he?s done. I think now Stellan wishes he was Bill, because they can see the end result. They did a fantastic job in retaining Bill Nighy?s character.?

CGI Down to the Smallest Details: Verbinski said even Davy Jones? eyes were computer generated. ?I originally intended to keep [Bill Nighy?s] eyes. I don?t want to not have something going on behind the eyes and that?s the thing that computer?s can?t do very well. Little compressions in the eyes. His pauses and drifting off and how the pupils kind of spread when someone is thinking about something of having a memory. It?s really difficult stuff to do, but we didn?t use any of Bill?s real eyes. We ended up using completely CGI, because it just became too cumbersome to use his real eyes. And also, when we started to look at what we could achieve, we are sort of crossing over a threshold with the work ILM has done with Davy Jones. That was really reassuring. A lot of it is just done by hand.

You script the image and you?ve got Bill and dots on his face and what you?ve shot, and you?ve got the animated version of Davy Jones. You step through it frame by frame, and you move and you go, ?Look at what he?s doing here with his lower lip. And look what he?s doing here. And that pupil is compressing.? And you kind of really steal his performance. But, it?s not like you put it through a computer and turn a knob and it comes back at you. It?s a lot of talented animators working a lot of hours to retain his performance.?

Being a Part of the 'Pirates' Ride at Disneyland: Characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies are now a part of the revitalized 'Pirates of the Caribbean' ride at Disneyland. Director Verbinski shared his point of view on the revived ride. "I?m kind of a purist, I like the ride just the way it was. I just make the movie."