Beta Film has closed a pair of big broadcast deals for its WWII drama Atlantic Crossing, starring Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks) and Sofia Helin (The Bridge), selling the limited series to Spanish pay TV group Movistar+ and to Austria’s national public broadcaster ORF.
MacLachlan plays U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the series, alongside Helin as Norwegian Crown Princess Märtha, who, after escaping Norway ahead of the Nazi invasion of the country, traveled to America to plead with Roosevelt to enter World War II. Roosevelt and the princess became close friends — Märtha for a time lived at the White House — and some historians credit her with helping influence the course of America’s involvement in the war. Tobias Santelmann (The Last Kingdom) plays Märtha’s husband.
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PBS premiered the eight-part limited series Atlantic Crossing in the U.S. last week. The show has gone out across Scandinavia and Eastern Europe on free-to-air networks and on SVOD platforms in territories such as Germany (Magenta TV) and Belgium (Streamz). Beta, which co-produced the series together with Cinenord for Norway’s NRK and PBS’ Masterpiece, is handling world sales.
Atlantic Crossing premiered at the CanneSeries television festival in October last year. Alexander Eik created and directed the series, from a script co-written with Linda May Kallestein.
Helin made her international breakthrough playing the socially inept detective Saga Noren in the Scandinavian noir The Bridge, which became a worldwide hit and inspired several remakes, including FX’s English-language series of the same name starring Diane Kruger and Demian Bichir.
MacLachlan is best known for playing Special Agent Dale Cooper in David Lynch’s seminal mystery series Twin Peaks, a role that earned him two Emmy nominations. He recently revived the character for Lynch’s recent reboot of the show, Twin Peaks: The Return. MacLachlan also starred in two seasons of HBO’s Sex and the City and was a recurring castmember on ABC’s Desperate Housewives.
