Disney has finally settled on a director for the upcoming fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and it’s a somewhat surprising choice.  We learned earlier this month that Disney had narrowed the director list down to Fredrik Bond (The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman), Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki), and Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman), and now Deadline reports that the directing duo of Rønning and Sandberg has landed the job.  Rønning and Sandberg are best known for helming last year’s Norwegian action/adventure film Kon-Tiki, which was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.  Hit the jump for more.

Production on Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean 5 isn’t expected to kick off until later this year or early next year, but the choice for director should be in within the next few weeks.  Here’s the reported short list:

• Fredrik Bond (The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman)
• Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki)
• Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman)

Deadline reports that the Kon-Tiki co-directors are the names that are coming up most often in discussions.  Jeff Nathanson (Catch Me If You Can) has been tapped to pen the fifth installment of the property.  Check out what producer Jerry Bruckheimer had to say about the picture in a recent interview with Steve.

Will there ever be a great movie based on a video game?* I have my doubts.  The problem is two-fold: if you stray too far from the material, fans get upset.  If you’re too faithful, then you’ve basically recreated the game except the interactive aspect has been removed.  But it’s important to keep in mind that most of the videogame movies we’ve seen so far are protagonist-based: Mario, Lara Croft, the Prince of Persia, etc.  And then there are movies like Silent Hill and Wing Commander that just aren’t very good.  But what if you took a talented director like Duncan Jones (Moon) and let him build a story out of a gigantic video game world?  Legendary Pictures plans to do just that by having him adapt World of Warcraft.

Steve recently interviewed Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull, who explained how WoW is going to be a successful video game movie.  He also talked about the studio’s other upcoming projects including movies from Michael Mann and the directors of Kon-Tiki.  Hit the jump for more, and click on the respective links for what Tull had to say about Man of Steel and Pacific Rim/Godzilla.

A new trailer is now available for the Oscar-nominated Norwegian film, Kon-Tiki, which tells the heroic true story of Thor Heyerdahl’s expedition across the Pacific Ocean on a balsa wood raft in order to prove his theory on island colonization.  Directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, Kon-Tiki stars Pal Sverre Valheim Hagen, Gustaf Skarsgård, Odd Magnus Williamson and Anders Baasmo Christensen.  Hit the jump to watch the new trailer.