13/12/2006

The Swedish integrated group is going to adapt for the screen two books based on the best-selling crusade trilogy The Knight Templar by Swedish popular novelist Jan Guillou for an estimated budget of SEK210 million (€23.2m), the biggest ever for a Nordic production.

The Svensk Filmindustri (SF) project will be co-financed by Swedish regional film fund Film I Väst, broadcasters SVT in Sweden, TV2 in Norway, DR in Denmark, YLE in Finland and Telepool in Germany, Dagsljus and ESP, with support from the Swedish Film Institute.

Danish filmmaker Peter Flinth (The Eye of The Eagle), who recently collaborated with SF on the thriller Mastermind (based on Henning Mankell’s novel), will start shooting the first film in Marocco next January and filming will then move to the UK and Sweden’s Trollhättan studios. Playing knight templar Arn Magnusson will be the relatively unknown Swedish actor Joakim Nätterqvist (Tsatskiki-Friends Forever). However, the script is by expert screenwriter Hans Gunnarsson, who previously adapted Jan Guillou’s Evil for Swedish filmmaker Mikael Håfström.

The epic movie, set circa 1200, will mix fiction and fact and will refer to true events and people who lived at that time. During a press conference attended by the director, lead actor and writer Jan Guillou, Flinth said: “The biggest challenge will be to keep the same emphasis on God and love as in the books, and to focus on the personal drama and dilemma within Arn”.

The first film to be shot in English and Swedish will be ready at the end of 2007 and the second feature in autumn 2008.