By Owen Reyes · Originally reported by Richard Horgan (2011) · Wayback archive →
In mid-May 2011 The Hollywood Reporter handed its Facebook fan page over to Jerry Bruckheimer for a day — timed to coincide with the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The publication’s first guest editor was the man whose production company had roughly 4,000 more Facebook “likes” than the revamped THR did.
Then
Janice Min’s THR was systematically experimenting with platform-engagement formats. The Bruckheimer Facebook takeover was one of several attempts to use social platforms as cross-promotional vehicles. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was the fourth installment in the franchise; the timing fit Disney’s marketing rollout.
Now
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides grossed about $1.04 billion worldwide. A fifth Pirates film (Dead Men Tell No Tales) followed in 2017. Subsequent franchise development has been complicated by the Johnny Depp legal proceedings. Jerry Bruckheimer has continued as one of the most-active U.S. film and television producers — Bad Boys franchise, continued procedural-TV producing. The guest-editor-of-Facebook-page format did not become a sustained device; Facebook’s broader deprioritization of brand-page reach removed the strategic value such takeovers had originally promised.