After two times Easy Money, it's Life Deluxe for Jonssen

by Jorn Rossing Jensen

17/10/2012 - Swedish director Jens Jonssen, whose feature debut The King of Ping Pong [trailer] (2008) won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, began principal photography yesterday (October 16) on Life Deluxe, the concluding part of Swedish lawyer-turned author Jens Lapidus's Stockholm Noir trilogy about JW, a poor student who has a double life within the wealthy Stockholm elite.

Swedish-American actor Joel Kinnaman (photo), whose first performance in the series earned him a ticket for Hollywood (and most recently in Robocop), returns to the lead in a cast with Matias Varela, Dejan Cukic, Madeleine Martin and newcomers Martin Wallström and Malin Buska.

In Easy Money [trailer], JW gets involved in organised crime, while in the sequel he serves hard time in prison, struggling to return to an honest way of living. Now he lives in exile, determined to find what happened to his missing sister Camilla - and it all leads to the world of organised crime in Stockholm.

The first instalment in the franchise took more than 600,000 admissions domestically to become one of the biggest successes during the past ten years. While the original film has been licensed to more than 30 countries, US producer Charles Roven is preparing a US version for Warner Bros, with Zac Efron attached to star.

"Obviously it will be the most exciting and action-filled part of the series," said Swedish producer Fredrik Wikström Nicastro, who is staging the project for Tre Vänner with Swedish regional film centre Film i Väst and Germany's ZDF/Arte. Nordisk Film Distribution will release the film in autumn 2013, while Denmark's TrustNordisk handles international sales.