Department Q Set For US TV Adaptation

BT reports that author Jussi Adler-Olsen has agreed a deal with Left Bank Pictures (The Crown) to produce a US TV adaptation of the Department Q novels, with ten seasons planned to encompass the entire book series.

The US TV rights were sold to screenwriter Scott Frank in 2014, but it has taken until now to find a production partner that felt right. Few other details about the deal are known at the moment, but Jussi Adler-Olsen has previously spoken about the difficulty in casting Detective Carl Mørck.

He told BT: “Frank and I have talked a lot about who one could imagine as Carl Mørck in the series. Several things come into play, but it must be an actor who is willing to commit for 10 years. And somebody like George Clooney would be no good because he would be too old in ten years time.”

Meanwhile, The Marco Effect, a Danish adaptation of the fifth instalment in the Department Q novels is slated for a theatrical release on 1st October 2020. The previous film, The Purity Of Vengeance, was the biggest Danish box office movie since records began with all four instalments in the franchise so far sitting in the top five.

Whilst the first four films in the franchise were produced by Zentropa, Nordisk Film took over the reigns from volume five and have outlined a plan to release a new instalment every two years until 2026. This also marks a change in casting with Ulrich Thomsen (Summer Of ’92) taking over as Carl Mørck and Zaki Youssef (Sons Of Denmark) as Assad.