Espen Sandberg (born 2 June 1971) is a Norwegian film director and advertising producer, well known to work with his childhood friend and director Joachim Rønning on several projects such as Bandidas (2006), Max Manus: Man of War (2008), Kon-Tiki (2012) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017).
Later that year they served their mandatory time in the military making propaganda films for the Royal Norwegian Army.
Their extensive and award-winning work in commercials in Scandinavia led to major international commissions such as ads for Airbus, Nintendo, Coca-Cola, GE and Nokia.
Together with fellow Norwegian director, Harald Zwart, they own and run Motion Blur, a production house for commercials.
The film was released in 2012 to great reviews; Rotten Tomatoes reported that 83% of the critics gave a positive review, writing: "A well-crafted retelling of an epic true story, Kon-Tiki is a throwback to old-school adventure filmmaking that's exciting and entertaining in spite of its by-the-book plotting."