Norwegian drama set for US remake, Fox, Chernin attached

A scripted format from Norwegian pubcaster NRK is heading in to the States, with Peter Chernin and 20^th Century Fox Television attached to the remake.

Mammon is billed as a “tense thriller that sets brother against brother in the world of politics, media and finance”.

Its distributor DRG has sold the format to Fox’s production arm before the first season has even aired in Norway, where a second season has already been commissioned. United Talent Agency brokered the deal.

Cherin Group founder and former News Corp COO Peter Chernin is executive producing the US project along with Katherine Pope.

“The Nordic region has been a hot source of international hits and we are thrilled and proud that Mammon has been met with such enthusiasm,” said series producer Vegard Stenberg Eriksen, whose brother penned the scripts.

DRG’s CEO Jeremy Fox recently told TBI there was an opportunity for independent distributors such as his firm to capitalise on the growing number of US cable channels commissioning original drama and to that end has been aggressively pushing into the market.

“We have seen an increase in demand for Scandinavian formats recently,” said DRG’s head of drama Anke Stoll. “This is the tenth scripted format we have sold into the US, but the first from our partnership with NRK, so we are absolutely thrilled, especially as the original series is yet to be aired.”

In a further development, NRK has renewed its first-look deal with MTG-owned DRG. This follows on from an original deal in 2011 and includes both scripted and non-scripted programming.

The partnership has so far spawned several remakes of Never Ever Do This at Home and deals for My Celebrity Boyfriend and Teenage Boss. DRG launched new NRK format Slow TV at MIPCOM, where the vendor said it was a “big hit”.