27/08/2012 - "Generally, genre films have problems in the Danish market,” according to Nordisk Film Distribution – so although it was launched on more than 2,500 screens in America, The Possession is not yet on the release schedule in Denmark

While Danish director Ole Bornedal's new US horror movie, The Possession, starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyre Sedgewick – and produced by American horror speacialist Sam Raimi – will be launched on more than 2,500 screens in the US on August 31, it will most likely go straight to DVD in Denmark.

"Generally, genre films have problems in the Danish market,” said local distributor Nordisk Film Managing Director Jan Lehmann. He would not exclude, however, that a strong opening weekend in the US could squeeze the thriller into the Danish release schedule – the film follows a young girl who buys an antique box at a yard sale, unknowing that inside lives a malicious ancient spirit.

Last month (July), Canadian director Boris Rodriguez's Eddie – The Sleepwalking Cannibal, a horror comedy starring Danish actor Thure Lindhardt and co-produced by Danish producer Ronnie Fridthjof, of Fridthjof Film, took fewer than 4,000 admissions in two weeks.

In 2011, Danish director Christian E. Christiansen's horror-thriller The Roommate went to No 1 on the US charts, but sold only 5,000 tickets in Denmark; there was no Danish success either for Jonas Elmer's romantic comedy New in Town (2009) and Asger Leth's action-thriller Man on a Ledge (2012). Bornedal had a similar experience when in 1997 he directed the American remake of his prize-winning feature debut, Nightwatch (1994).

The director's next Danish assignment will be 1864, an eight-part historical drama series produced by Miso Film with a €13.4 million participation by Danish pubcaster DRTV. It will air in 2014 – 150 years after the end of the war when Denmark lost a third of the country to Germany.