‘Headhunters’ Helps Norwegian Features to Record Box Office

COLOGNE, Germany – Headhunters, the Norwegian thriller based on the best-seller by Jo Nesbo, has become the most successful Norwegian title in history and has helped drive local box office figures to record heights.

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Directed by Morten Tyldum and starring Aksel Hennie, the man-on-the-run drama has sold more than 500,000 tickets at home in Norway and 100,000 more in Denmark as it starts its international roll out. Almost single-handedly, Headhunters boosted the local-language share of the Norwegian box office to 58 percent in September. Magnolia Pictures will release the film in the U.S. and Summit Entertainment has secured English-language remake rights.

Even without Headhunters, Norwegian films are on a roll this year, with several crowd pleasers including Marius Holst’s King of Devil’s Island starring Stellan Skarsgardand Benjamin Helstad; the comedy Turn Me On, Dammit! by Jannicke Systad Jacobsen and family-friendly titles Totally True Love by Anne Sewitsky and Arild Ostin Ommundsen’s Twigson in Trouble.

And a slew of potential hits are still to come, among them Pal Sletaune’s Babycall featuring The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo star Noomi Rapace, which opened last week, and Jackpot, a comedy-thriller from director Magnus Martens based, like Headhunters, on a story by Jo Nesbo. If the momentum keeps up, Norwegian films could take around 25 percent of the country’s total box office this year.