EXCLUSIVE: Iceland‘s manufacturing providers previous has pushed a artistic growth flurry, in accordance with key native trade figures corresponding to Severance star Ólafur Darri Ólafsson.
Primarily recognized in leisure for housing big-budget U.S. productions corresponding to HBO’s True Detective: Evening Nation and Christopher Nolan sci-fi Interstellar, Iceland has emerged out of the shadows of its previous as a automotive commercials location to turn out to be a major participant in European TV co-productions. On the similar time, its home sector has equally grown with native networks and streamers shopping for and the likes of Netflix and CBS Studios investing.
Ólafsson, the Icelandic-American actor and producer who starred in Baltasar Kormákur’s sequence Trapped and Apple TV+ drama Severance, stated abroad productions and the nation’s favorable tax break have performed a serious position within the state of affairs. He has simply filmed Sequence Mania competitors contender Reykjavik Fusion, a crime-meets-cookery drama sequence, for his manufacturing home ACT4, France’s Arte and U.S. co-producer Wild Sheep Content material.
“We shot it for round €900,000 [$1M] an episode, which to everybody exterior Iceland feels ridiculously low,” stated Ólafsson. “Coming from Iceland, it’s a must to make sources go far, however we’re fortunate that we’ve had a mixture of big-budget American and worldwide productions come right here, which has educated and created these actually unimaginable crews. It additionally means we’ve tools that in all probability wouldn’t be right here if we didn’t have these huge productions.”
Ólafsson added that Iceland and the U.S. had loved a “good symbiotic relationship,” with American demand resulting in the event of native manufacturing infrastructure that’s now driving native growth and aiding higher scripting. “In different international locations, it hasn’t,” he stated. “In Canada or the UK, it takes over and also you’re simply doing American initiatives or you possibly can’t compete with the cash.”
We spoke to a number of producers with comparable views for this text. Andri Omarsson, CEO of Icelandic producer Glassriver, was one. He stated: “All through the ears we’ve been lucky to have the nice foundations from the manufacturing providers – we’ve all of the infrastructure as a result of we’ve been serving Hollywood since James Bond got here right here in 1984 [for A View to a Kill]. We will now take that data and use it for Icelandic content material.”
James Bond characteristic ‘A View to a Kill’ filmed in Iceland in 1984
United Artists/courtesy Everett Assortment
Glassriver has emerged as a serious native producer since its co-founders made true-crime drama Case for Netflix in 2014, and is likely one of the few firms that also doesn’t double as a manufacturing providers agency or maker of commercials and unscripted.
The agency is behind the likes of As Lengthy As We Reside, starring Mr Robotic‘s Martin Wallström and bought internationally by Eccho Rights, and thriller Black Sands, co-produced with a number of European companions. In current months, we’ve revealed it’s making reveals corresponding to Reykjavik Noir for streamer Síminn, a sequence adaptation of Lilja Sigurdardottir‘s crime novel trilogy, and Manifesto, a thriller based mostly on Iceland’s first-ever real-life terrorist assault that has France-based distributor Wild Bunch TV on board. Elsewhere, capturing has wrapped on wrapped manufacturing on its coproduction with Portugal’s SPi, Chilly Haven. Additionally it is making Masquerade with will co-produce scripted sequence Masquerade with Severance govt producer Nicholas Weinstock and his Invention Studios, and worldwide co-pro specialist Marc Lorber’s The Artwork of Coproduction.
“After The Case, which was the primary to get an MG from a global distributor, we noticed that there was a path ahead for Icelandic content material to get worldwide financing,” stated Omarsson. “With that mindset, we based Glassriver with the only real goal of constructing internationally-financed Icelandic content material that travels.”
Glassriver’s co-founders made Netflix drama ‘Case’
Netflix
Tax break affect
An Olsberg SPI report commissioned by Iceland’s Ministry of Tradition and Enterprise Affairs in 2024 confirmed that the nation’s display trade had turn out to be a “main success story” due to productions corresponding to Lamb and Beast, with main worldwide initiatives corresponding to True Detective: Evening Nation, The Northman and Interstellar all capturing within the nation.
Having assessed the 2019-2022 interval, the report famous there had been a “regular upward trending development” within the variety of initiatives profiting from the Iceland Movie Manufacturing Incentive, which offers TV reveals and movies with a 35% rebate for manufacturing that spend not less than ISK350M ($2.75M) within the nation. The whole worth distributed was “break up equally” between home and overseas productions. Given the growth in growth and Iceland-led co-pros, it wouldn’t be shocking to see this tip in favor of native developments.
Kristinn Þórðarson, SVP of Movie and TV at producer and providers supplier Truenorth, was Chairman of Icelandic producers physique SIK when the tax rebate was elevated from 25% to 35% in 2022. “Since then, most of the TV sequence which are produced in Iceland haven’t relied on assist from the movie fund, which has been starved of funding for years,” he stated.
“The 35% tax rebate has actually made an enormous change, as we predicted after we bought the the change by means of. With that, and with the license charge from a TV station, you’ve got virtually 50% of the funding secured from Iceland.” This primarily pertains to five-to-six-episode scripted sequence with budgets of round €5M-€6M.
Since Þórðarson joined Truenorth ten years in the past to push it past manufacturing providers and into originals, the corporate has made reveals corresponding to RÚV unique The Valhalla Murders, which bought to the BBC amongst others, and SkyShowtime’s drama The Darkness with CBS Studios Worldwide, now a serious investor in Icelandic co-pros.
“We made The Darkness in English though we used largely Icelandic actors, and that allowed us to double our funds as a result of CBS Worldwide was keen to pay for an English-speaking present,” stated Þórðarson. “That’s one solution to make the reveals with larger budgets, but when we preserve in Icelandic then we’ve a glass ceiling.”
Subsequent up for Truenorth is Loss of life on the Island (aka Diplomat Dies), co-produced with Canada’s Blink49 Studios and based mostly on a e book from Icelandic former First Woman Elize Reed, which we informed you about first in April. Reykjavik: A Crime Story, in the meantime, relies on a e book from The Darkness scribe Ragnar Jónasson and former Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdóttir. It’s being produced for Síminn with Dimma Footage, a brand new automobile from Jónasson and former Stampede Ventures worldwide chief Jean-Paul Sarni that we revealed final week.
L-R: Ragnar Jónasson, Anna Friel and John-Paul Sarni
Tatiana Hallgrimsdotti
The truth that Marcella star Anna Friel is starring in and exec producing one other upcoming Dimma present, restricted sequence The Woman Who Died, is one other instance of that worldwide cash getting into the Icelandic system.
In fact, the problem for each native manufacturing sector is to stability the combination of English-language content material demanded by worldwide traders with a wholesome quantity of scripted programming shot within the native language and reflecting native tradition and values. Ólafsson has excessive expectations Iceland can obtain that.
“We communicate a language solely 400,000 folks communicate, however folks appear to be fascinated about tales from Iceland, which is extremely precious, and there’s no higher manner of conserving a language alive than to file folks talking it,” he stated. “We’ve had plenty of goodwill from throughout Europe, and Reykjavik Fusion wouldn’t exist with out Arte and Wild Sheep, a U.S.-based firm. There are co-productions available.”
