‘Pirates’ won't appear in one of filming locales

updated 3:42 p.m. ET July 12, 2006

ROSEAU, Dominica - The only theater in this lush tropical island won’t be screening the latest installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” the venue’s owner said Wednesday — disappointing fans on the island where the film was partially filmed.

The 300-seat theater, which has been closed for about two months, still has a leaky roof and won’t open in time for “Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest,” said owner Joan Prevo.

The decision is a blow not only to movie fans but to the to the 75 islanders who held full-time jobs on the movie and another 200 who appeared as extras in the Hollywood blockbuster, which grossed a record $135.6 million in U.S. ticket sales its first weekend.

“This movie was made in Dominica. It should have been shown here first and the cinema owners have no excuse,” said Michael Austrie, a bus driver who had hoped to be among the first on the island to see the movie on the big screen.

Others in Dominica, which bills itself as the “Nature Island of the Caribbean” and is among the least developed in the region, faulted the owners of the theater in the capital, Roseau.

“I would have hoped that the people who own the only cinema in Dominica would have negotiated something,” said Lennox Honeychurch, a local historian who was an extra.

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Irving Auguiste, a Carib Indian who was also an extra, said he would get a copy of the movie and show it on tribal lands in the northeast, though he was vague about how he would manage this feat.

“I have my connections and they will be sending me a copy soon,” Auguiste said.

Well before its release, “Pirates” had already been a big topic of discussion on the island. Charles Williams, chief of the Carib Indians, had complained that the portrayal of his ancestors as cannibals is inaccurate and unfair to his tribe.

Dominica, a former colony of Britain and France, was the last Caribbean island to be colonized by Europeans, mainly due to resistance from the Caribs.

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