1864 Movie Snubbed By Danish Cinemas

Ole Bornedal’s movie version of 1864, the most expensive drama ever made for Danish television at a cost of $30.7m, will not premiere in Danish cinemas. Biografklub Denmark, among others, have said no to the movie, and the distributor SF Film does not believe that there is a big enough audience to warrant a cinematic release.

SF Film had previously estimated that there was a potential audience of 200,000 for the movie. However, Sune Lind Thomsen from SF Film now says that “there is no new material in relation to the television series… The potential is not large enough.”

“We have made a wonderful film that is probably not going to hit the Danish cinemas,” says producer Peter Bose of Miso Film. “But the estimates were made before the TV series had been shown. I still think it would have a life. It is a really good movie. Also, it is closer and more intense than the TV series.”

Bornedal is now rather philosophical about the movie’s domestic distribution issues and wrote in an email to Politiken that it has now been “sold to several countries, giving it a life abroad.”

1864 is about the Second Schleswig War between Denmark and Prussia and Austria which ended in 1864, resulting in more than 5,000 Danish deaths and the loss of one-third of its territory to Prussia.