Christian Rank, (pictured) the wonder boy of Danish TV drama who just produced for DR the much anticipated series The Legacy, has been appointed Executive Producer at TV 2 Fiktion. The 35 year-old producer will supervise the channel’s upcoming high profile drama series.
A former graduate of the Danish Film School, Rank has worked as associate producer on Miso Film’s crime series Varg Veum and Those Who Kill, before moving to DR where he produced the dramedy Happy Life and Pernilla August’s upcoming family drama The Legacy. “Danish TV drama is going through a very exciting growth curve and TV2 plays a major role in this. I look forward to contributing to the continued development of TV2 Fiction and to working with the various writers, directors and producers involved,” said Rank.
Katrine Vogelsang, Head of Fiction for TV2 Danmark said: “It’s a scoop that we’ve managed to attract Christian Rank to our team. He is not only one of Denmark’s most successful producers of TV series but also a strategist; he has an eye for talent and a passion for quality TV.”
TV2’s drama department has had a good year with its crime series Dicte that drew an average audience of over 1.2 million, one of the channel’s best ratings for a Danish drama series in the last five years. The second season of Rita launched in September had an average 733,000 viewers and rights were sold for a US remake.
Last Sunday TV2’s Christmas calendar series Tvillinger og Julemanden (‘The Twins and Santa Claus’) was watched by 1,384,000 Danes (half the population with their TV sets on), making it the biggest premiere for a Christmas calendar series since 2008. The next high profile drama series is Badehotellet written by the Emmy-award nominated duo Stig Thorsboe and Hanna Lundblad (Better Times). The series in the Downton Abbey vein will start airing on TV2 on Monday December 30 at 20.00.