Millennium Goes Global

The first feature film in the Millennium trilogy - Men Who Hate Women - has sold to five new territories, including the UK and Australia, with more than 15 others showing a strong interest and likely to close deals imminently.
This news follows the great success of the film's theatrical opening in France on may 13, French-speaking Switzerland and Belgium (totalling more than 895,000 admissions), alongside Italy (150,000 admissions), spain (217,924 admissions) and Canada (38,920 admissions) where the film opened on May 29.
The UK's Momentum and Australia's Rialto have acquired rights along with Rosebud in Greece, Gussi in Mexico and Clardin in Argentina. UGC in France, Frenetic in Switzerland, Lumiere across Benelux, Bim in Italy, Vertigo in Spain, Alliance in French-speaking Canada and Monolith in Poland acquired rights to the film earlier in the year.
With a cast including Swedish star Michael Nyqvist and rising actress Noomi Rapace, the feature film directed by Niels Arden Oplev is creating remarkable excitement around the globe. It has been seen by an audience of 2.6 million people in Scandinavia alone grossing more than €27,000,000. In Spain, the film became the second most watched in the country on its opening weekend and in France, the Millennium is currently number four at the box office.
Millennium is produced by Yellow Bird, the award-winning Swedish production company owned by the leading European group, Zodiak Entertainment. Distribution of the film is being handled by Marathon, another Zodiak Entertainment company.
Yellow Bird is also producing two further films adapted from the Stieg Larsson trilogy, entitled Millennium 2 (The Girl Who Played With Fire) and Millennium 3 (The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest). Rights to adapt the complete trilogy were bought by Yellow Bird before the books were published.
Pascal Breton, SVP Fiction of Zodiak Entertainment, said: "We are delighted to announce these new sales. The hype surrounding Millennium is justified. It's an outstanding accomplishment and we are pleased to see that this opinion is echoed among so many of the international buyers in Cannes."
Mikael Wallén, Managing Director of Yellow Bird, added: "It is very rare for a non-English speaking film to obtain this kind of extensive international distribution. We are very pleased that our adaptations of Stieg Larsson's fantastic books have so much appeal to buyers all over the world."
Zodiak Entertainment is responsible for all production and distribution activities in television, film and new media on behalf of the De Agostini Group. Zodiak Entertainment comprises more than 30 European companies and last year it generated more than €400 million. These highly successful, award-winning companies are the creators of diverse and popular shows across the genres of drama, entertainment, animation and documentary.
Further information is available at: www.zodiakentertainment.com.
(KMcA/BMcC)