Back in July I wrote about how the author can break faith with the reader by killing off characters unnecessarily.

The recent ‘news’ that Disney planned to drop Will Turner from the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie illustrates what I was saying.

The reason given for killing him off was money. Disney supposedly wanted to save money on the fourth movie.

The general feeling among fans we polled* was betrayal. Some people felt Will Turner was integral to the story, and should not be killed off for that reason, others felt more betrayed by the reason Disney was killing him off. As one of our surveyees said, “I can understand if there was a reason to kill him, but not just to save money. That’s a stupid reason.”

As it turns out, Disney have since denied the rumours.

 

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 * It wasn’t a scientific poll, more a ‘What do you think about …” among people we knew who liked the movie.