The paper examines the translation of the English lexeme “pirate” into Croatian using the lexemes “pirat” and “gusar”. More precisely, it examines how the “Pirates of the Caribbean” film franchise brought about a change from the previous textual-linguistic norm in which “gusar” was the single dominant lexeme. The research focuses on printed texts translated from English into Croatian and divides them into two groups: those published before and after the release of the series in 2003. The results show that the works translated before 2003 used “gusar” as the preferred translation solution for “pirate”, whereas “pirat” became more frequent in post-2003 translations, suggesting that the franchise brought about changes in textual-linguistic translation norms.