You have produced a TV series for kids: Elias the Little Rescue Boat that was Emmy nominated in 2006. But The Heavy Water War is your very first TV drama. Is this a step in a new direction for Filmkameratene?
John M. Jacobsen: Definitely. We feel this is an important field. Our niche is producing big movies and we feel that we can use our experience to turn to major scripted series. We could not do game shows, reality television, but we can certainly do big TV dramas.
Furthermore, Nordic TV series are going through an interesting time, attracting interest all over the world, and I think this trend is going to last quite a while. By getting international exposure, professionals involved in making Nordic TV dramas will gain in confidence and more doors will open internationally. We see only the start of it.
Just like your 2008 hit Max Manus, The Heavy Water War (Kampen om tungtvannet) focuses on the Norwegian resistance movement during WW2. When did you start discussing the project?
J.M.J: The project has been in development for nearly seven years. First, we wanted to make a Norwegian remake of Anthony Mann’s 1965 classic The Heroes of Telemark, which itself was a remake of the 1948 Norwegian film Kampen om tungvannet in which the saboteurs played themselves. Somehow we felt it would be just another action movie. But when we looked again at the story, the drama surrounding the development of a possible German atomic bomb suddenly became much more fascinating and appealing. In particular the moral choices that the real people at the time had to make. For instance Werner Heisenberg [German physicist who was one of the key creators of quantum mechanics] tried to be excused by saying he was just a scientist, not part of the Nazi machine. The problem is that once you want to say A, you can’t avoid saying B. On the Norwegians side you had industrialists producing this heavy water and selling it to our German occupants. They felt they didn’t have any choice because it was a good business and they felt responsible for their workers. So you have all those moral questions from different sides which make it very interesting.
How did you decide to turn the project into a TV series?
JMJ: It’s actually our Danish co-producer Morten Fisker from Sebasto Film who came to us with the project. He and Borgen creator Adam Price contacted us and suggested to collaborate. Then Adam left the project. The new writer is Petter Rosenlund.
When will you announce the international cast?
JMJ: We expect to announce it at the end of May or early June.
On the feature film side, what’s the update on your other historical projects Tordenskjold and Theresienstadt Requiem?
JMJ: Regarding Tordenskjold, we and Zentropa are sure it will get off the ground. Theresienstadt Requiem is also on our list but it’s been difficult to finance. We have decided to focus on other movies first.
So what’s coming first?
JMJ: In the fall we will start production on Operation Arctic, a very exciting family film about three children stranded on an island close to Svalbard. They are left there by accident and nobody knows where they are. It’s based on a book written about 30 years ago. Grete Bøe (Ten Lives of Titanic the Cat) is directing and wrote an excellent script. We have many highly varied projects in development.
Talking about genre movies, Troll Hunter was a hit on the international market and you sold the rights for a US remake. It must have been a very pleasant surprise…
JMJ: Troll Hunter was a great experience. It was one of those instances where everything came together right. In terms of marketing campaign, the way we decided to go to Austin’s SXSW Festival before opening in Norway, to use Facebook, social media to promote the film. Everything worked. But let’s not forget that it is a very good film. I saw it again yesterday and was happy to see –again- how well made it is.
Will you make another film with director Andre Øvredal?
JMJ: If the right project comes along, he said he would want to do it with us and vice versa. Both parties have to be enthusiastic about the film.
As one of Norway’s biggest film moguls, you have often been in tune with the market. How do you feel about digital platforms that are changing the way films are watched and discussed?
JMJ: As early as the late 1980s, we’ve had people come to Scandinavia and preach the gospel of VOD. It took a while to arrive but it is definitely here now. How it will play out on the long term is very difficult to predict. The only thing you can be sure of is that the whole universe around movies and TV series is going to change dramatically.
Transformation of the cinema universe is like Broadway. Some 40 years ago, you could go to New York and see a fantastic range of theatre plays. That doesn’t exist anymore. Today you only find major blockbuster shows on Broadway and most of them are musicals. If you want to see other stage plays, you need to go off-Broadway. Even big stars play in 150-seat theatres. There is no mid-range anymore.
You see the same trend with films in Hollywood. US studios only make movies that are geared at the international mainstream audience, meaning action movie fans. These movies are universally understood and make a fortune. How long this will last is also hard to say, but there is a chance that in 10 year-time, if you don’t deliver films for a mainstream audience, you will have nothing to do in the cinemas. That’s my guess but I may be wrong!
The Nordic region is very aware of delivering these major event movies to break the national and regional boundaries….
JMJ: There is a dogma - and I don´t mean the von Trier/Vinterberg version - that Scandinavian films can´t play outside their own territory. The first Millennium film proved that wrong. And on television we have Danish drama. It’s more about giving the international audience what they want. It’s a little like in the film Field of Dreams: "If you build it, they will come!" Unfortunately it’s not enough to build it. The audience also has to be aware of your product, and that is much easier with a tentpole production. Media everywhere loves "big" and they love "events".