Directors line up for Pirates of the Caribbean 5

The shortlist of potential directors for the fifth film in the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' series has been narrowed down to three.

Deadline reports that Disney are close to selecting the helmsman to follow Rob Marshall's 'On Stranger Tides'.

[Related story: Tom Hollander 'badly paid' for Pirates work]

The three in question are said to be Fredrik Bond, the two-man team Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, and Rupert Sanders.

Bond is a relative newcomer, particularly to big budgets, his debut feature film 'The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman' only coming out earlier this year.

Ronning and Sandberg made the epic Norwegian drama 'Kon-Tiki', nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars.

The film, about adventurer Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 expedition across the Pacific on a raft, proved the pair were adept at filming on water, so may serve them well.

Meanwhile, Sanders was responsible for helming the bug budget 'Snow White and the Huntsman', and is rumoured to be taking on the reboot of 'Van Helsing' with Tom Cruise.

He's more famous of course for having an affair with Kristen Stewart on the set of 'Huntsman'.

Though critically mauled, 'On Stranger Tides' still did phenomenal business, making the Mouse House over $1 billion in box office takings, showing that the appetite for the franchise endures.

The film is due for a release in the summer of 2015.