The planned shooting of the €10m film was put on hold when Nordisk Film, co-owner of production house Solar Film and distributor of the film decided mid-February to pull out of the project because of a lack of international co-financiers. Since then, experienced producer Markus Selin has actively tried to find alternative financing, mostly from Finnish capital investors, according to YLE news, but also via pre-sales of cinema tickets. However, the prospects of shooting several weeks in wintery conditions started to melt as time went by. "Our intensive negotiations during the last few weeks have been productive, but there's still a lot of work to do to finalize the financing. We still need three to four weeks for preparations, so the snow will be melted by then" explained Selin.
The shooting of Mannerheim is now set to start next summer, with the winter shooting scheduled for late 2009. The film's premiere has therefore been pushed to the autumn 2010.
Meanwhile, Finlandia award winner Hannu Raittila is said to prepare a novel based on the Mannerheim film project, although the framework for the novel will be wider. It will try to elaborate on Mannerheim's inner memories and sensations from his heroic life.