The new "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, despite receiving negative reviews from critics, had a successful opening at the box office, grossing $132 million. This trend has been observed throughout the summer, with movies that are disliked by critics often performing well commercially. For example, "The Da Vinci Code" was criticized by Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers, who called it a "dud." However, the film still managed to gross over $720 million worldwide. Similarly, "Superman Returns" fell short of expectations but received positive reviews from the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Carol Cling.

Despite this, the film did not perform as well at the box office as predicted. Reflecting on the overall summer movie season, some critics have questioned whether big blockbuster films are becoming obsolete due to underwhelming performances of films like "Mission: Impossible III" and "X-Men: The Last Stand." However, it is worth noting that these three films alone have brought in a total of $1.5 billion in ticket sales worldwide.