13/03/2013 - After The Hypnotist, the second film in the Lars Kepler franchise of eight thrillers with Tobias Zilliacus in the lead as police detective Joona Linna has been delayed

Swedish director Kjell Sundvall's The Paganini Contract - the second out of eight films from Swedish author Lars Kepler's thriller series, which was due to shoot from August - has been delayed till next summer, Swedish major Svensk Filmindustri (SF) has announced.

"We have not come so far with the preparations as we had expected - it is such an exciting book, and we think we can make a better movie if we give ourselves more time," SF's Swedish producer Charlotta Denward told Sweden's DN.

The Kepler (the pen name of husband-and-wife authors Alexander and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril) franchise was launched by Swedish director Lasse Hallström's The Hypnotist, his first movie in Sweden since More About the Children of Noisy Village in 1987.

With Finnish actor Tobias Zilliacus in the lead as police detective Joona Linna, co-starring Sweden's Mikael Persbandt and Lena Olin, the film took 270,000 admissions domestically, sold more than 30 countries and was Sweden's official candidate for the Oscar nomination as Best Foreign-Language Feature.

"We have worked on this for a year, and for a free-lancer this is a difficult situation - still this is film business," said Sundvall - The Hunters 1-2 (1996-2011) - who is still  looking forward to adapting "a tight, compelling story, made for an explosive and hair-raising film."

The postponement of The Paganini Contract will not influence production of the third title in the franchise, The Fire Witness, from SF and subsidiary Sonet Film, which will assign  Nordic top directors, such as Sweden's Mikael Hafström or Denmark's Susanne Bier, Lone Scherfig, for the remaining parts of the series.