Zwart Arbeid on new projects in US and Norway
A bankable name in the US after his 2010 remake of The Karate Kid (1984), which grossed $358 million on a production budget of $40 million, Norwegian Hollywood director Harald Zwart (pictured) is preparing new features both for American studios and his own production outfits.
On his international dance card he has signed tod irect Universal Pictures’ Bakugan, a feature spin-off from the Bakugan Battle Brawlers strategic game and animated series which won Toy of the Year in the US in 2009. He will also be executive producer of Sony Pictures’ Roller Coaster Tycoon.
In Norway he is putting several projects together for his Zwart Arbeid production outfit, including a screen adaption of Norwegian author Gerd Brantenberg’s Egalia’s Daughters; a biopic of Norwegian WW2 commando, Jan Baalsrud in We Die Alone; and a Long Flat Balls 3 (”after all, two films are not enough for a trilogy”).
In Norway, he has also teamed up with colleagues Espen Søndberg, Joachim Rønning and producer Espen Horn to launch a new production company, Motion Blur Films, as part of their eight-year-old outfit for commercials, also including Motion Blur Digital (for digital/3Dservices).
”We have three feature film projects ready, and at least one of them should go into production next year,” explained Horn, who has signed such films as Long Flat Balls 1 + 2, Dead Snow and Empty Vessels. ”We have three feature film projects ready, and at least one ofthem should go into production next year.”
Søndberg and Rønning’s first local feature, Max Manus (2008) [+see also:
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film profile], took a record 1.2 million admissions domestically. They are currently shooting Kon-Tiki, a $17 million co-production between Denmark’s Nordisk Film Production AB and the UK’s Recorded Picture Company, about Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl.
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