Yellow Bird bringing Jo Nesbo¸ to the small screen

Scandinavian producer Yellow Bird is eyeing a television remake of Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters following the success of the theatrical movie. This comes after Norwegian public broadcaster NRK commissioned the company to produce Occupied, an original TV drama penned by Nesbø.

Yellow Bird, which produced Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, is considering turning the movie, which was originally directed by Morten Tyldum and is being remade in the States with Sacha Gervasi, into a procedural drama. The film is based on Nesbø’s novel Hodejegerne.

Producer Marianne Gray told TBI: “Maybe in the future, we’ll make Headhunters as a television series.”

Gray added that it had been approached by a number of US cable networks and broadcasters keen to capitalise on the success of Scandinavian crime drama.

Norway’s NRK, meanwhile, has greenlit Yellow Bird to produce eight part drama Occupied. The series, which is based on an original idea rather than an existing novel, tells the story of an oil shortage and the subsequent invasion of Norway by Russia to take over its oil fields.

Yellow Bird, which is owned by Zodiak Media, is one of the hottest production companies following the success of the Millennium movies including The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo as well as detective series Wallander. The company is also working with German public broadcaster ZDF and a Swedish broadcaster on a new mini-series called Hostage as well as a number of other drama projects.