The highly anticipated and very modern Wallander reboot, starring Gustav Skarsgård (Oppenheimer, Vikings) and produced by Banijay Entertainment’s Jarowski/Yellow Bird and Swedish broadcast network TV4, has added more key cast members: Sofia Martinsson (Festen, Brar), Ana Gil de Mello Nascimento (Sune) “Gusmanman”, “Iodskott”) and Goran Ragnarstam (“Aan”, “Kops”, “Offside”).
Further principal cast news for Wallanders, which will be distributed internationally by Banijay Rights, comes after Jarowski/Yellow Bird also announced new action comedy Permafrost for Netflix Nordic.
The 22-year-old Martinsson, who landed the role of Zafira in the coming-of-age drama Festen, which is currently in its fourth season, will play Kurt Wallander’s estranged daughter. Martinson also played the role of Josephine in the coming-of-age series “Blaar,” Season 2 of “Sannigen,” which she left on December 25th, and the movie “Nipster.”
Gil de Mello Nascimento, a prominent performer at Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theater and who has had an extensive television career including “Gazmanman” (2016-17) and “Jordskott” (2017), plays the role of his wife Mona Wallander.
Veteran Ragners Stam, who won the Guldbagge Swedish Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Saxophone (2002), has appeared in more than 50 series and films, most recently The Silent Beekeeper, which opened this year’s Gothenburg Film Festival on January 23, and will play the iconic detective’s father in Wallander.
Henning Mankell’s film adaptation of the famous Kurt Wallander novel, which has sold over 40 million copies, spawned a three-season Swedish series from 2005 to 2013, and its broadcast on BBC 4 in the UK ushered in a breakout international Scandinavian series. Kenneth Branagh played the role of the police inspector of the same name on British television from 2008 to 2016.
But the importance of the three family figures in the new “Wallander” reboot sets it apart and grounds its contemporary themes. For a classic European murder mystery version, think Hercule Poirot. Detectives are a source of authority and stability in a world where there is little suspicion of crime. In contrast, in the rebooted version of Wallander, Gustav Skarsgård’s character Wallander’s life falls apart.
Goran Ragnerstam (“Wallander”)
“When we started the series, Wallander had just divorced his wife. It’s very refreshing. He still wants her back,” Yarovsky/Yellow Bird CEO Elin Kvist told Variety.
“This series is really a dance between two people. It’s so charming and full of love,” she added. “At the same time, she moves on and doesn’t want to go back, and he has to realize that, which is really hurtful at times in the series. She brings really authentic raw emotion.”
At the same time, Wallander is constantly worried about his daughter, who has a difficult past, seen throughout the series, but wants to be free from her parents. Wallander’s father is old and no longer as dependable as he once was. “So in a way it’s like Wallander lost everyone,” Qvist added.
Wallander, who lacks confidence in himself, “lives in a modern society where you have to take responsibility for your actions. Even if you’re sad, even if you’re lonely, you can’t just act out. So it was a very interesting adaptation of the character,” said Kvist.
Filming will begin in January and will take place in and around Stockholm. Produced by Jarowski/Yellow Bird, “Permafrost” will be directed by Patrick Eklund (“The Conference”) from a script by Peter Arrhenius (“The Clerks”).
The principal cast includes Björn Gustafsson, Ariette Ofaim, Marie Richardson, Maria Lundqvist, Jimmy Lindström, Bela Vitali, Peter Eggers, Leo Razak, Fredrik Hiller, and Bahadur Foradi.
The story focuses on a most unlikely duo of Swedish police officers, Marcus Tell and Anne Wilding, who are forced to unite when seemingly vastly different investigations come to the same dramatic conclusion: an attack during Stockholm’s Nobel Prize Week. Produced by Lotta Westberg.
The announcement of “Permafrost” comes at a time when seven of the top 10 most-watched non-English movies in Netflix history are action films in some sense: “Trolls,” “Under Paris,” “Extraterritoriality,” “Nowhere,” “The Deluge,” “Counterattack,” and “Ad Vitam.”
Acclaimed for “Parlamentet” and “Stockholm Live,” “Björn Gustafsson is Sweden’s most famous comedian, so it’s very comedy-driven, but The Affair is taken very seriously. We haven’t done a lot of action comedies here, in fact, there wasn’t any action at all. So it’s a very exciting and big thing for Sweden.”
The Scandinavian TV scene was devastated by Viaplay’s withdrawal from major content investments in 2023.
Jarowski and Yellow Bird, known for the “Millennium” and “Wallander” series, will merge in September 2024, with Qvist appointed as CEO.
“We’re able to combine Jarowski, a comedy-drama company, with Yellowbird’s big crime and international co-production DNA. I think this combination has been very successful for us,” Kvist said.
The Scandinavian producer said: “SVT and TV4 still remain as strong broadcasters and then Netflix, Amazon and HBO Max come back. Being a big company, we currently have a good and I hope stable market in Scandinavia,” she added.
permafrost
Netflix
