Mads Mikkelsen’s latest film project has been suddenly cancelled due to a rights issue. The untitled project from Nebraska director Alexander Payne was due to begin production within the week for Netflix. Deadline reports:
I’m trying to get to the bottom of this — sounds like somebody dropped the ball, to get this close to a production start without fully executed underlying rights deal — but I’ve heard that the subject of the film, Norwegian journalist/author Karl Ove Knausgard, was left with an “out” and had a change of heart about having his story turned into a feature. Attempts were made to pull the film back on track, to no avail.
The film was to shoot this month in Sweden, Denmark and the U.S. The script was written by Erlend Loe (Nord). It will be produced by Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa of Bona Fide Productions and Lizette Jonjic of Zentropa Productions.
