During the European Film Market at the Berlin film festival, Zodiak Entertainment Distribution closed deals with distributors in Spain, Poland and Switzerland. The sales to Spain and Poland include the rights to distribute both the TV-films and the feature film to cinema, whereas the sale to Poland only includes the feature film. In total, the films have now been sold to Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain and Poland.
Yellow Bird is producing six TV films in Swedish based on the entire Millennium trilogy as well as a feature film based on the first book Men who hate women. The films are co-produced with the broadcasters SVT in Sweden and ZDF in Germany, as well as with the distributor Nordisk Film.
"Our previous international sales took place even before we had a film to show. During the film festival in Berlin we had our first market screening of Men who hate women which was very well received. The last sales took place after the screening and we hope that the interest will increase further as more distributors actually get a chance to see the film", says Mikael Wallén, MD of Yellow Bird.
Zodiak Entertainment continues sales negotiations of the Millennium films with several other countries worldwide.
Men who hate women (original title Män som hatar kvinnor) opens on cinemas in Sweden and Denmark 27 February, in Norway 13 March and in Finland 27 March. In France and Italy the will film will preliminary have cinematic release in May.
The six TV films will be broadcast by SVT (Sweden), ZDF (Germany), DR (Denmark), TV2 (Norway) and MTV3 (Finland) during 2010.
For further information, please contact:
Mikael Wallén, MD of Yellowbird
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+46-704 31 21 15
Erik Hultkvist, Head of Business Development
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+46-739 37 05 16
Deb Lawrence, Lippin Group
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+44 20 3008 5406
Please also visit http://www.yellowbird.se/ for press images and more information about the Millennium films.
Yellow Bird was founded in 2003 and is today one of the largest Scandinavian drama production companies. It has also recently entered the German market, by starting a subsidiary in Munich.
The company's main focus is large international scripted co-productions, be it films for TV and cinema, or drama series. Typically, the productions are based on internationally successful books or characters from such books.
Yellow Bird is currently producing six TV films and one feature film based on Stieg Larsson's critically acclaimed Millennium trilogy, as well as 13 new Swedish movies about Henning Mankell's criminal inspector Wallander.
The company has also recently finished the production of three English Wallander movies starring Kenneth Branagh in co-production with Left Bank Pictures. The films premiered on BBC 1 in November/December 2008 with a total number of viewers between 5.3-6.2 million and were very well received in British press.
Previous productions include the first Swedish series of 13 movies about Wallander as well as six TV movies about criminal inspector Irene Huss, based on the books by Helene Tursten.
Yellow Bird is part of Zodiak Entertainment.
Zodiak Entertainment coordinates all De Agostini's activities in the production and distribution of content for television and new media. Formed by more than twenty successful international companies, the majority of which European; in 2008 its revenue totalled more than €400 million.
A leader in the media industry, Zodiak Entertainment has a number of subsidiaries:
- Magnolia, a leading Italian independent producer of light entertainment. Magnolia successfully launched operations in Spain during 2005.
- Marathon Group, a leading TV production company in France, with its subsidiaries Marathon, Marathon Media, Tele Image, KM, and ALP (Adventure Line Productions). Marathon Group owns a broad portfolio of scripted programs, as well as animation and documentaries.
- Zodiak Television, based in Sweden, owns several production companies operating in Northern Europe, the UK, Belgium, The Netherlands and in Eastern Europe. Some of the most renowned include: Yellow Bird, Mastiff, Diverse Productions, Bullseye, Lucky Day, Kanakna and Palm Plus
