The Norwegian production outfit Maipo Film hit gold with its first feature film production Elling with more than 740,000 local admissions - the highest figure in 25 years - and is now planning a run of literary adaptations.
Veteran producer and head of Maipo Film, Dag Alveberg now has several other high-profile projects in development. One of them, Single, is based on the semi-autobiographical adventures of the fictional character Scruella de Ville, a thirtysomething single woman in inner city Oslo. The book, which is billed as a Norwegian equivalent of Bridget Jones's Diary is a compilation of a weekly cult newspaper column written under pseudonym by a Norwegian film critic.
Alveberg recently acquired the right to adapt A Bullet, a crime novel where the action takes place in Norway's financial circles. A Bullet is being described as "a financial thriller about greed", not quite unlike the Michael Douglas-vehicle Wall Street.
Literary adaptations are not all plain sailing. With Elling based on one of a series of best-selling novels about the same character, many people took it for granted that there would be a follow-up. But the author, Ingvar Ambjornsen, has declared that he will not accept any more adaptations, judging the concept of sequels as "too American".
Alveberg is now preparing the $1.6m feature Jonny Vang to be directed by Jens Lien based on an original script by Stein Staale Berg. Lien is known for his short films screened in competition at Cannes for two years in a row. The comedy about a young provincial dandy who inherits a farm is still in pre-production.
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