02/04/2012 - Swedish directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein to film Swedish author Anders Fager’s Collected Swedish Cults for Svensk Filmindustri

With several game designs to his credit, Swedish author Anders Fager’s 2011 compilation of tales ”of good versus evil in a world inhabited by the supernatural”, Collected Swedish Cults, is on its way to the big screen.

In a Bonnier in-house deal, the media concern’s Swedish major Svensk Filmindustri AB has purchased the rights from Bonnier Group Agency for the book, which the Swedish director duo of Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein (pictured) will helm from a script by Mårlind.

Mårlind-Stein’s American 3D horror actioner Underworld: Awakening (2012), starring Kate Beckinsale, has currently grossed more than $159 million since its January 20 opening. The directors, who met at film school, joined forces to shoot Shelter [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2010) and had previously worked on Storm [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2005)."

”Although we had never met before, Mårlind and I share the same morbid fascination with morbid stories – mutual friends tell us we have the same books at home, only on different shelves. To me he is the perfect script writer for the film,” Fager explained.

”With Collected Swedish Cults I have everything I need to succeed trying to set a new standard, visually but also storytelling-wise - surprising stories with gripping and engaging characters, its own credible universe and a tone all of its own.”

The deal was brokered by the agency’s Judith Toth and producer Karl Fredrik Ulfung, of Svensk Filmindustri, which will also handle Scandinavian distribution; Ulfung expects the film to be ready for local theatres by the end of next year.