Are you pleased with the 3.3 million + Scandinavian viewers that watched episode 1 of Bron Season 3?
Lars Blomgren: The numbers for Scandinavia are amazing. It’s an enormous relief since we were forced to continue without one of the main leads. It was a huge risk. But at the end that revitalised the series and we’re extremely pleased with the results.
How did world buyers respond to the series at MIPCOM?
LB: It has been fantastic. Expectations from all parts of the world are very high, especially from the BBC [November premiere]. We’re anxiously waiting for the launch of Season 3 all over Europe.
Is a Season 4 in the making?
LB: We all want to do it –European/Scandinavian broadcasters and the creative team, and we’ve started discussing how and when we can get our creative team and talent together again."
There is a French/UK version of Bron –The Tunnel and US/Mexican version –The Bridge. What other adaptations are in the making?
LB: Bron is an important piece of IP for Filmlance International and its parent group Endemol Shine Group, and a major part of my job is to supervise format adaptations. Right now, we have in production Season 2 of The Tunnel. It’s brilliant, as a classic Nordic noir in the atmosphere, but set in England and France.
The US version The Bridge closed down after Season 1. The Mexican/US take did not work very well as the countries are too disparate. However that created new opportunities for us. We have decided to create a Hispanic and an Asiatic version. The Hispanic version –between Brazil and Argentina- will be able to travel to Portugal/Spain and back to the US as 13% of the population is Hispanic.
The Asiatic version will most probably involve North and South Korea. It will be a challenging but a very interesting take on the cross border concept.
Can you explain your role as Chairman of Scripted Exchange within Endemol Shine Group?
LB: Our group produces some of the best scripted content on the planet and my job is to figure out how we can benefit creatively from being part of that group. Our UK, French, German sister companies are creating amazing drama. We’re looking at cross border projects and how to best collaborate globally. We also have a growing business in the US. Humans for instance produced by our sister company Kudos, with Channel Four and AMC in the US was a successful example of European and US mix of talents and coin.
Apart from what we do today, our focus is very much on children's content and comedy.
I’ve heard that you are developing a remake of Ingmar Bergman’s famous Scenes from a Marriage. Can you confirm?
LB: Together with Ingmar Bergman’s son Daniel Bergman, we have been working on a new take of Scenes of a Marriage for a couple of years and acquired rights from the Ingmar Bergman Foundation. Unfortunately the show is stuck in a dispute between the Foundation and Svensk Filmindustri regarding distribution rights. But I’m confident this conflict will soon be resolved.
We actually have two remake versions in preparation –a Swedish one developed with SVT and an English language version with a US broadcaster that can’t be named now.
Having Daniel Bergman directly involved is an absolute privilege and his input gives us a unique insight and new twist to the story. He also acts as executive producer on the two projects, and had the brilliant idea of bringing in show-runner/scriptwriter Hagai Levi (In Treatment, The Affair) for the US Scenes of a Marriage. Working with him is one of the finest creative experiences I have had through my career.
When do you plan to deliver the Swedish and US remakes of Scenes of a Marriage?
LB: The idea is to have the series ready for the centenary of Ingmar Bergman’s birth in 2018.
In general is it easier for you today to raise financing for your projects because of the phenomenal success of Bron?
LB: The paradox is that high-end Nordic noirs like Bron or The Killing, with budgets ranging from €8-10 million - are the ones catching fire worldwide. But locally, we still struggle to raise the initial 15-20% of the financing. This is one of the reasons why support from public sources – national institutes, Nordisk Film & TV Fond and Creative Europe - is so important.
What do you feel Swedish and Scandinavian producers should/could do to sustain the current success in TV drama?
LB: In order to compete and deliver first class projects, we simply have to constantly reinvent ourselves. I’m so impressed by DR and their ability to come up with very creative and exciting new shows such as Follow the Money. They do a lot of things in-house and are excellent at developing plus they have a great gut feeling.
I have a crime project called The Actor. We’re doing it 50/50 with our sister company Rubicon in Norway. We’re using the talented writers of Lilyhammer Anne Bjørnstad & Eilif Skodvin and bringing in comedy to the crime genre. It will be like combining Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lilyhammer, Bron and Broadchurch. We will have a Swedish director, top Scandinavian actors and even cameos with English talents. It’s a brilliant project but you’ll have to wait to get more details!