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Welcome to International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key figures and companies from outside of the U.S. who are shaking up the marketplace. This week, we’re talking to Norwegian director Joachim Rønning, who has worked across projects such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Kon-Tiki. Rønning tells us why he felt compelled to bring the inspirational story of Trudy Ederle, the first woman to successfully swim the English Channel, to life in Young Woman and the Sea and also what audiences can expect with his next project Tron: Ares.
Joachim Rønning has long been fascinated by the sea. Growing up in the small Norwegian seaside town of Sandefjord, his childhood was filled with memories of sailing and being on the open water. “I’m relaxed on the water,” the director tells Deadline. “There’s something so rewarding about being out there – the beauty and danger of it, the emotions of it. It has everything I’m looking for in a story.”
It’s perhaps no surprise then that the prominent director, who has helmed a raft of ambitious projects such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Oscar-nominated Norwegian epic Kon-Tiki (both of which he directed with former directing partner Espen Sandberg) and Disney’s upcoming Tron: Ares (more on that later), jumped at the opportunity to direct Young Woman and the Sea, an inspirational story about Trudy Ederle, the first woman to successfully swim the English channel.
The project, which sees Daisy Ridley play Ederle, is based on a book by Glenn Stout and was adapted for the big screen by Jeff Nathanson. Rønning admits that it’s “one of the best scripts” he has ever read.
“I’m very moved by true stories, and I was baffled that I didn’t know this story because it was a worldwide event when it happened 100 years ago,” he says. “Trudy inspired the biggest parade in New York history, and, in many ways, she changed women’s sports forever.”
The Disney-backed project, which also stars Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Stephen Graham, Kim Bodnia, Christopher Eccleston and Glenn Fleshler, is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Chad Oman and Nathanson with John G. Scotti, Ridley and Rønning serving as exec producers.
It’s a story of the accomplished swimmer who was born to immigrant parents in New York City in 1905. Through the steadfast support of her older sister and supportive trainers, Ederle overcame adversity and the animosity of a patriarchal society to rise through the ranks of the Olympic swimming team and complete the staggering achievement – a 21-mile trek from France to England.
“I almost felt an obligation to retell her story and to bring her back into the light for the world,” says Rønning. “At the same time, I have two teenage daughters so I’ve been looking for a story for them – an inspirational story about something they can relate to and be inspired by. It felt like we had a great responsibility to get her story out to the daughters of the world.”
But the project, of course, was not without its challenges. Shot in 2022 in Bulgaria and the Black Sea, production designer Nora Takacs Ekberg deftly created New York in Sofia, Bulgaria, while the Black Sea dubbed as the English Channel. At the time of the shoot, the war in Ukraine broke out just 200 miles north of them.
Rønning was adamant the story deserved to be shot on the sea, something that was not only a logistical challenge, but a huge hurdle for Ridley, who was scared of open water. “It was definitely the most intense movie I’ve ever done,” he says. “But it was very important for me to tell the story as real as I could. I wanted to be on an ocean. I didn’t want to be in the tank or on blue screens.”
Ridley endured months of training to prepare her for open water swimming. “I tried to keep her in the water as little as possible,” he says. “But I also realized when we were shooting that she had such a physical strength to her that even in the wide shots, where I could have used a double because her face was down, I felt that nobody else could replicate that so I ended up having to use Daisy for all of the shots in the film when we were out in the ocean.”
It’s not lost on Rønning, a frequent Disney collaborator, that a film like Young Woman and the Sea was lucky to have been made in the studio system and even Deadline’s Pete Hammond referenced this in his review of the film, citing Rønning and Bruckheimer’s “clout and dedication” as responsible for giving the studio an “echo of its past” with the biopic.
“It’s a miracle that a movie like this was made in the studio system,” says Rønning. “I have to thank [Disney Co-Chairman] Alan Bergman for saying yes and also Jerry [Bruckheimer]. If you have Jerry in your corner, everything is possible and he’s probably the main reason we finally got to make this movie because we spent nearly 10 years trying to get it off the ground.”
Initially slated to go straight to streaming on Disney+, Top Gun producer Bruckheimer helped secure the title a limited theatrical release via Disney on May 31, 2024, after it tested in the high 90s.
“Jerry said that this film was the highest-scoring movie that he’s done so he tortured Disney into giving us a theatrical release,” quips Rønning, who adds that he’s thankful the project got to be experienced in a theatre. “Movies are best experienced in a cinema – it’s physical, it’s social and you experience something together that your senses play off of. It’s completely visceral.”
Humble beginnings
Growing up, Rønning’s father was an amateur actor in the local theatre in Norway and some of the filmmaker’s earliest memories are of being backstage with him. “I remember being fascinated with the concept of ‘in front of’ and ‘behind the curtain’,” he says. “I loved being able to watch stories unfold from behind the scenes and seeing the effect it had on the audience sitting out there. I was basically getting an insight into the illusion of storytelling.”
Inspired by American classics such as E.T. – “It completely blew my mind” – Rønning and his childhood friend Sandberg opted to go to film school together in Stockholm. After a few years, the two started working together in the commercials world. They were soon signed by Luc Besson and his EuropaCorp label, who was a big fan of the Norwegian directing duo.
Besson had recently signed a production pact with 20th Century Fox and Rønning, who had been writing a script for his first feature film, asked the French producer if he would shop the script to Fox. During a commercial shoot in Redwood National Park, Rønning got a call from Besson. “He said to me, ‘Hey, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is Fox doesn’t want to do your script, but the good news is I want you direct my script Bandidas.”
Besson, who had written the Western comedy and would produce the project, was impressed with the pair and thought Rønning and Sandberg would be the perfect fit to direct the film, which was set to star Salma Hayek and Penélope Cruz. But they would have to convince the leading ladies first.
Rønning and Sandberg then decided to make “a little spoof movie” during their lunch hours while shooting the commercial, which saw the two directors play Hayek and Cruz in the short film and they submitted it to the actors. Luckily, it worked.
Bandidas was, says Rønning, “the best film school that I could have ever had – probably the most expensive film school, but it was the best. When you make a genre film like that, you really get to know your audience.”
The pair went on to direct two of the Norway’s biggest grossing films to date: Max Manus: Man of War, the true story about one of the most brilliant saboteurs during World War II and his battle to overcome his inner demons; and Kon-Tiki, the 2012 film about Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 expedition from South America to Polynesia.
Rønning and Sandberg then went on to direct the fifth instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which Rønning recalls as an “incredible experience”. Working with Johnny Depp, who played the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow in the franchise, was a great experience for him. “Johnny would always nail it in the first take,” he says. “Sometimes he was late, but then he would come on these gigantic sets, and he would spend half an hour just hugging everyone. He’s impossible to be mad at. He would come up to you, give you a hug and then he gets in front of the camera and nails it in the first take. He’s a true genius.”
After Pirates, Sandberg and Rønning ultimately decided to part ways. It was an amicable split, says Rønning. “We are great friends, but I don’t think we’ll work together again. I think we have both moved away from that. It was an amazing collaboration and friendship, and we traveled the world together and built our careers together. I love him. But we’ve both developed as filmmakers now and I do think as a director, it’s easier to have a solo vision.”
Rønning would continue his run of working with A-list talent, next directing Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, starring Angelina Jolie and Michelle Pfeiffer, working with Angelina Jolie and Michelle Pfeiffer. Currently, he’s in the editing suite on what will be his third Disney sequel Tron: Ares. That standalone sequel stars Jared Leto, Jeff Bridges, Gillian Anderson and Evan Peters.
Leto, who plays the highly sophisticated program Ares that is sent from the digital world into the real world, is famously reputed for staying in character throughout the duration of his film shoots and while Rønning can’t reveal much about the anticipated film, he did say Leto continued that process for Tron: Ares.
“I’ve been lucky to work with some of the best actors in the world and they all have their different processes,” he says. “I don’t care how they get there – whatever works for him or her.”
Tron: Ares, which wrapped shooting in May, is slated for an October 2025 theatrical release and, while different from his previous works, Rønning has been grateful for the opportunity to add something new to his resumé. “It’s been fantastic for my next endeavor to be a science fiction movie that takes place inside a computer. It’s my dream as a filmmaker to be able to move between such vastly different stories.”
With Tron: Ares, he promises audiences a “more emotional experience” than previous instalments. “Emotions will always be something that I strive for, and this film will be more emotional, something I don’t think the franchise has had as much in previous Tron movies. Both of them are, in many ways, masterpieces, but what I’m trying to do is create an emotional experience so that’s always going to be front and center. I think that that’s something that I managed to do with this film.”
As for what’s next, Rønning admits he has “a couple of projects” that could be set in Europe, noting that he’d very much like to work on a Norwegian project again. “For me, I’ve learned to just develop a lot of stories that I want to tell, and I think that with my next project, I would like for it to be something that I’ve developed myself.”
