“Ultimate Viking movie” to comprise two features and a TV series

Swedish production outfit Fladen Film is to launch The Long Ships, likely to be the biggest budget movie in Swedish history.

Fladen plans to create a full-blown Viking franchise that will comprise two feature films and a TV series. Plans are already afoot for all the Scandinavian public funders to support the project.

A writer and director will be announced in the near future.

The Long Ships was already made by Jack Cardiff in 1964 with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier. The rights to the project were owned by Columbia and Romulus Films. Fladen has now been able to secure these rights.

The Long Ships is based on the epic novel by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson.

Patrick Ryborn, CEO of Fladen Film, and Joakim Hansson, the company’s CFO, called it “the ultimate Viking movie”.