05/12/2014 - Directed by Pernilla August, DR’s family drama has been licensed to more than 40 countries ahead of its second season

Before entering its second season, on 1 January 2015, Swedish director Pernilla August and Danish author Maya Ilsøe’s family drama The Legacy has been sold to the US. Danish pubcaster DR has signed a deal with Universal Cable Productions, the production arm of NBC/Universal, which will develop an American version with Hypnotic and find a US TV station that will show the original. 

Currently aired by Sky Arts HD in the UK, the first TV series has been licensed to more than 40 countries. In the second part, Rasmus Botoft and Josephine Park have joined the cast consisting of Trine Dyrholm, Jesper Christensen, Kirsten Olesen, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard and Marie Bach Hansen in the fight for an inheritance after internationally renowned Danish artist Veronika Grønnegaard dies; the situation then develops into a family feud. 

While DR is yet to announce whether The Legacy will have a third part – the sets at DR are still intact two months after the latest episodes were concluded – the broadcaster has already decided which series will follow its recent successes of The Killing, Borgen and The Bridge: Deceived, aka Follow the Money, about economic crime, scripted by Jeppe Gjervig Gram (Borgen), Adam Price, Tobias Lindholm, Anders August and Jannik Tai Mosholt, and directed by Per Fly (most recently the Swedish Waltz for Monica [+see also:
trailer
interview: Edda Magnason
interview: Per Fly
film profile]/2013).

“It is a thriller, but it is not a new The Killing – it is not a whodunnit, but a ‘how did they do it’,” explained Danish DR producer Anders Toft Andersen. Set against the backdrop of the financial crisis, the ten episodes of Deceived unfold in the boardroom of a large Danish company, in the back rooms of the Copenhagen Police’s Fraud Squad and in one of the capital’s suburbs. 

So far, DR Fiction is known to be shooting two seasons of the new crime series, with Thomas Bo Larsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Esben Smed and Natalie Madueño in the leads of a cast that also includes Thomas Hwan, Waage Sandø, Line Kruse, Lars Simonsen, Henrik Noël Olesen and Stine Stengade. Part one is programmed from September 2015.