The Pirates of the Caribbean triad of actor Johnny Depp, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski have been plugging away on their latest big budget adventure, The Lone Ranger, for a few years now. But with the release of the Western just a little less than two months away, Disney will be wanting to move Depp over to that other franchise he anchors, and get going on Pirates of the Caribbean 5.
Deadline is reporting that the studio has a short list of directors they’re looking at, and it is a rather eclectic group. At the top of the list is Fredrik Bond, director of Sundance hit The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman. In Bond’s favour is the the reported blessing of producer Bruckheimer, but Deadline’s Mike Fleming is hearing some other names being floated.
New to the list are Kon-Tiki filmmakers Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg. The duo had been attached to the supernatural film Spectral at Legendary Pictures, but they have since parted ways with the project, and thus potentially freeing them up to make Pirates 5. Kon-Tiki was a sea-set tale, albeit with the fraction of a budget of a Pirates movie, so Rønning and Sandberg could handle the rigours of such a project. Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders was also mentioned, but he may already be tied up with the Snow White sequel.
One name not on the list though was Rob Marshall, who directed the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides. Despite the film grossing over $1 billion worldwide, Pirates 4 was a critical bomb, so Disney’s looking to re-capture some of that lost magic from the first movie while losing none of that cash.
Production on Pirates of the Caribbean 5 is still slated to begin sometime later this year or in early 2014, so the announcement of a director should be forthcoming soon.
More news as it develops.
Source: Deadline
