When Captain Jack Sparrow returns for a fifth time in the next installment of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, he’ll be doing so under the direction of a relatively unknown, but uniquely qualified set of directors.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” the title that directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg confirmed to This Is Infamous, will continue the Norwegian duo’s adventures on the high seas. Their last effort, “Kon-Tiki,” was the Oscar-nominated retelling of Thor Heyerdahl’s voyage across the Pacific.
When MTV News spoke with Rønning and Sandberg for the Blu-ray release of “Kon-Tiki,” which hits shelves Tuesday, they opened up about moving on to directing a studio tentpole and where they’re finding inspiration.
The duo has been working on “Dead Men Tell No Tales” since May, when they were announced as Disney’s choice to direct. “We’ve been on it now for a couple of months, so we are in preproduction. We are in our office at Disney in Burbank,” Rønning said. “It’s just great, working with Johnny Depp and the Bruckheimer camp. It’s a dream come true, really.”
This kind of directing gig has been a long time coming for the team, who have worked together since they were boys. “When we grew up in a small town in Norway, we started making little short films when we were 10 years old,” Sandberg said. “What we were doing back then was trying to copy ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Star Wars’ and those movies. It is really a lifelong dream coming true now to make an epic adventure movie like this.”
While it might seem like a drastic change, going from “Kon-Tiki” to “Pirates,” Rønning said that it was easier than you’d think. “The premise is the same. In some regards, it’s easier almost to make a big Hollywood movie because here, you have the resources. You have the best people in the world carrying you forward. That’s amazing,” he said. “Then, of course, everything is much bigger, and the crews are 10 times as big, and there are many more people that have an opinion and power. So far, so good.”
Though they couldn’t reveal too much about the fifth installment, they spoke highly of the script and said they are “very influenced” by the first film, “The Curse of the Black Pearl.” “We have a great script that Jeff Nathanson has written,” Sandberg said. “It’s really funny and touching. We’re really looking forward to realizing everything.”
Rønning and Sandberg expect to go into production sometime early next year, with a July 2015 release date already on the books.
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