16/04/2008

Denmark’s Miso Film has teamed up with Norway’s Cinenord to produce another six Varg Veum films, following the success of the first feature adaptations of Gunnar Staalesen’s best-selling novels.

The six new films will be produced by CineMiso – a new joint venture between Norway’s Cinenord, headed by Silje Hopland Eik (Producer on the Move 2008) and Tanya Nanette Badendyck – and Miso Film run by Allen and Peter Bose. “CineMiso was set up to produce the Varg Veum series, but we will continue to produce our own projects separately,” stressed Badendyck.

Cinenord and Miso Film previously collaborated on Norwegian filmmaker Gunnar Vikene’s 2006 children’s film Trigger [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and will team up again on Vikene’s upcoming youth project Vegas, set to start filming in September. Both companies also co-produced the Danish thriller The Candidate by Kasper Barfoed, which will open in Denmark in August.

The new Varg Veum films will include the same key cast members as the first films in the series: Trond Espen Seim and Bjørn Floberg. No director or scriptwriter is attached to the projects yet. The new films will follow the same production schedule as the last ones, with two theatrical releases and four films produced directly for television and DVD.

The first feature film of the Varg Veum crime series, Bitter Flowers [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen, produced by Miso Film and SF Norge, was released in Norway last year and garnered over 108,000 admissions. The second and third films, Sleeping Beauty and Yours Until Death respectively, both directed by Erik Richter Strand, were very successful as direct-to-DVD titles.

The second Varg Veum film made for a theatrical release, Morten Tyldum’s Fallen Angels, received excellent reviews in the local press and is number one in the Norwegian top ten for the second weekend in a row. International sales are being handled by Svensk Filmindustri.