Yellow Bird, the production house behind the successful Millennium films - announced on Monday it had acquired film rights to Holt's three crime novels What is mine, What never happens and Madam President. The books featuring husband and wife detectives Adam Stubø and former FBI agent Johanne Vik, will be made into six films by Yellow Bird's Marianne Gray, in co-production with Norway's Monster Film, in association with TV2 Norway. The partners will also collaborate on an upcoming fourth novel from the Vik/Stubø series and original stories written by Holt. Scriptwriter Axel Hellstenius (Elling) is working on the adaptations with Kjell Ola Dahl.
A former journalist, lawyer and Minister of Justice in Norway, Holt is one of Scandinavia's most successful crime novelists. Her books have been translated into 25 languages and sold more than four million copies worldwide.
The former economist Camilla Läckberg who started exploring crime fiction a decade after Holt, is also one of Scandinavia's best and youngest writers in the genre. Her six crime novels about investigating duo, writer Erica Falck and detective Patrik Hedström have been read by over 2.7 million Swedes and sold worldwide.
After having successfully adapted the two first books of the series The Ice Princess (Isprinsessan) and The Preacher (Predikanten), SVT has produced the two following Läckberg novels as 2 x 60 minute mini series for each book. The Stone Cutter (Stenhuggaren) was shot last autumn, and The Jinx is currently filming in Fjällbacka (the novelist's birthplace) and in Göteborg. Both adaptations are directed by Emiliano Goessens (183 dagar). In the lead roles are Elisabet Carlsson and Niklas Hjulström. Annika Holmberg is supervising the project for SVT.