News

L.A.-based Dynamic Television has acquired worldwide rights to the Swedish series “The Pirate Bay,” about the notorious pirate BitTorrent site and its co-founders Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Swartholm.

The six-part series, set to go unto production this fall, is being produced by Stockholm and L.A.-based powerhouse B-Reel Films for Swedish pubcaster Svt. “I Am Zlatan” helmer Jens Sjögren is directing, from a screenplay by head-writer Piotr Marciniak (“Everything I Can’t Remember”), with Patrik Gyllström (“Agatha Christie’s Hjerson”) serving as episodic writer.

The character-driven show turns on Peter, Fredrik and Gottfrid, who ended up creating in 2003 one of the world’s largest BitTorrent indexes as a reaction to big business trying to take control file sharing over the Internet.

What was intended to ignite a revolution to let information flow freely, quickly became responsible for the illegal distribution of copyrighted films, music, books and software online.

Cannes — TV series “Agatha Christie’s Hjerson” has been picked up by streamer Topic for North America and by the Australian channel Sbs, Zdf Studios announced Tuesday at Cannes Mipcom trade fair.

“Agatha Christie’s Hjerson” is being sold as both a 45-minute series and four feature-length stories.

Topic has taken exclusive rights for the U.S. and Canada. Sbs, a multicultural Australian broadcaster, has also closed an exclusive deal for the drama series.

Additionally, Zdf Studios has licensed the program to VOD platforms Google Play, iTunes, Amazon, Deutsche Telekom and Huawei for German speaking territories, as well as Germany’s public broadcaster, Zdf.

Other buyers include Viasat World, which covers the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Croatia and the whole of Southeast Europe, Keshet (Israel), Nhk (Japan), VR Films (India), Lrt (Lithuania) and Walter Presents, Walter Iuzzolino’s Global Series Network for the U.K. and Ireland.

“I’m delighted that this excellent drama,...

In today’s Global Bulletin, “Agatha Christie’s Sven Hjerson” takes top honors at MipTV’s MipDrama; ScreenSkills launches an ambitious unscripted training program in the U.K.; San Sebastian opens the call for its Europe-Latin America co-production forum; We Are Parable plans 18 months of events to celebrate Black filmmakers in the U.K.; WarnerMedia commits to Sam Mendes’ Theatre Artist Fund; Channel 5 announces four new historical unscripted specials; and NewImages Festival, Cannes Xr and Tribeca Festival create XR3, a virtual exhibition for VR content.

Markets

MipTV’s MipDrama sidebar has awarded Be-Reel Films’ “Agatha Christie’s Sven Hjerson” with the coveted MIPDrama – Buyers’ Coup de Cœur, the most prestigious prize at the annual Cannes-based market.

In the show, Hanna Alström plays Klara Sandberg, a former TV producer pitching a true-life crime show starring Sven Hjerson — an updated real-life version of the popular character from Agatha Christie’s oeuvre...

Few titles which will have been presented at this Friday’s MipDrama look as ingenious in their invention as “Agatha Christie’s Hjerson.”

Anyone looking for a series of novels in the Poirot or Marple vein will look in vain. Sven Hjerson appears in multiple Christie works, but always via (often disparaging) comments made by his creator, fictional crime novelist Ariadne Oliver, a friend of Poirot’s whom Christie invented to let off steam about the travails of crime writing.

Despite being her most popular detective, Oliver would like to kill him off, she says. That’s because she’s made him a foreigner and receives letters from readers complaining about the inaccuracy of her descriptions of him: a fate suffered by Christie with Poirot.

Many decades later, Oliver must be rolling in her grave. Her master sleuth Sven Hjerson has now become the protagonist of an eight-part TV series...

The 6th edition of MipDrama, launching Friday as part of virtual conference and market event MipTV, showcases new series – most in post-production, a few wrapped – from some of the biggest and most exciting drama series players in the world. Few events will command more attention from buyers. The following are brief profiles of what they’ll be watching:

“Agatha Christie’s Hjerson”

Concept Creator: Patrik Gyllström

Prod Cos: Br•F (Sweden), TV4/CMore(Sweden), Nadcon (Germany), Zdf, Government of Aland, Agatha Christie Ltd.

Distribution Co: Zdfe

Main Broadcasters: TV4/CMore, Zdf

Move over Poirot. The latest Christie sleuth will be a dapper Finnish gourmet who, living in a modern-day Stockholm and hardly concealing his bisexuality, ushers the author and the whodunnit into the 21st century. A light and playful reimagining of a figure who only receives glancing references in Christie’s oeuvre, the series packs a powerful producer punch: Sweden...

Sven Hjerson, the debonair Scandinavian master detective invented by crime writer Ariadne Oliver, a character in Agatha Christie’s novels, will get his own series, set in modern-day Stockholm.

In “Agatha Christie’s Sven Hjerson,” Hanna Alström plays Klara Sandberg, a former trash TV producer who successfully pitches a true-life crime show starring Hjerson, who would solve a real crime each week. The new show may reset Sandberg’s career and life, but the only problem is that she has never met Hjerson.

The show stars Johan Rheborg (“Kenny Starfighter”) as Hjerson. It will be comprised of four murder cases and broadcast as four films and an eight-episode TV series in the fall of 2021.

“The series will offer mystery, drama, puzzles; it’s not a comedy but will have a sense of humor and be a world that’s quite nice just to be in,” said Josefine Tengblad, head of...