TV2 Denmark has boarded Zentropa's high profile crime film series based on Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen's best-selling books about Department Q. The first of four films, Kvinden i buret or The Woman in the Cage, (Mercy in English) is set to start filming in September 2012.
Nikolaj Arcel, (pictured) co-writer of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and writer/director of The Royal Affair, is scriptwriter for the entire series and Mikkel Nørgaard, who filmed the Danish comedy hit The Clown and four episodes of the successful TV series Borgen will direct the first film.
The film project is the biggest ever for TV2 Denmark, and an important bet on crime. "We had been looking a long time for a strong film series and the film series about Carl Mørck and Department Q is exactly what we were looking for. We want to show films of high quality with a big audience potential, and we're sure the combination of Jussi Adler-Olsen's books and Zentropa can deliver this," said the channel's programme director Keld Reinicke.
The Woman in the Cage is set to reach cinemas at Christmas 2013. The following three films based on the Department Q novels The Pheasant Killers, Message in a Bottle and Journal n?64 will be filmed each following year with delivery for each film expected at the end of 2014, 2015 and 2016. The German broadcaster ZDF is attached to the financing.
The series about Department Q and the lead character Carl Mørk were launched in Denmark in 2007 and have sold over 1.2 million copies so far. The series was sold to over 32 territories, including Germany were total sales so far have passed six million volumes.