Wallander (TV series)

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Wallander
Genre	Crime
Created by	Henning Mankell
Written by	Richard Cottan Richard McBrian
Directed by	Philip Martin
Starring	Kenneth Branagh
Country of origin	United Kingdom/Sweden
Language(s)	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	3 (commissioned)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Andy Harries Francis Hopkinson
Producer(s)	Kenneth Branagh Simon Moseley Ole Søndberg Anni Faurby
Location(s)	Ystad, Sweden
Running time	90 min.
Production company(s)	Left Bank Pictures Yellow Bird
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC One
Original airing	2009
Status	Filming as of April 2008

Wallander is a British television series adapted from Henning Mankell's Inspector Wallander novels. The series is produced by British company Left Bank Pictures and Swedish company Yellow Bird for BBC Scotland. The BBC expects the series to replace Inspector Morse as a classic detective character for British television.^[1] Three adaptations have been commissioned for the first series.

1 Cast
2 Production
3 Broadcast
4 References
5 Further reading
6 External links

[edit] Cast

Kenneth Branagh as Kurt Wallander. Branagh contacted Yellow Bird, Mankell's company, in 2007, requesting to play the part.^[2] When Yellow Bird first put a television adaptation out to tender, names proposed to play Wallander included Trevor Eve, Neil Pearson, Jason Isaacs, David Morrissey, Clive Owen and Michael Gambon.^[1] Wallander's signature love of opera has been dropped for this adaptation; producer Francis Hopkinson believes it would make Wallander too similar to Inspector Morse, whose love of opera is already familiar to British viewers.^[3]
Tom Hiddleston as Detective Martinsson^[4]
Richard McCabe^[4]
Tom Beard^[4]
Jeany Spark as Linda Wallander^[4]
Nicholas Hoult^[5]

Luke Allen-Gale^[6]

[edit] Production

Yellow Bird first put out a tender for an English language adaptation in 2006. Broadcasters Yellow Bird negotiated with include the BBC and Channel 4.^[1] Three adaptations of Mankell's novels have so far been commissioned: Sidetracked, One Step Behind and Firewall.^[2] All three films are being directed by Philip Martin. Martin did not view the original Swedish Wallander films before signing on to direct.^[3]

A £6 million budget was assigned to the series, with £2 million for each episode.^[2] The main police station set was designed by Anders Olin, who also designed the sets on the original Swedish-language Wallander films. The set for the British series is 500 square metres—twice the size of Olin's previous set.^[7]

Local newspaper Ystads Allehanda have produced special editions to be used in the films. "We have tried to use Swedish words that can be understood by the English speaking audience", has producer Simon Mosely explained. ^[8]

Parts of the series was shot at Häckeberga Castle. ^[9]

Filming on Sidetracked began on 14 April 2008 on location in Ystad, Sweden. One Step Behind and Firewall will be filmed one after the other; principal photography for all three films is expected to take three months.^[10] Another three Wallander books are tentatively scheduled to be filmed in 2009.^[3] "This has always been the producers and Kenneth Branagh’s goal, as long as the audience enjoys the films" says Francis Hopkinson of Left Bank Pictures. Yellow Bird producer Ole Søndberg has said a few of Mankell’s books will be hard to film. He mentiones The Dogs of Riga and The White Lioness. In that case this leaves five original Mankell novels to film.^[11]

[edit] Broadcast

Wallander has already been sold to a number of countries and territories across the world, including TV4 Sweden, TV2 Norway, DR Denmark, MTV3 Finland, Lumiere Benelux and Svensk Film for its pan Scandinavian feed.^[12]