Studiocanal’s SAM Productions Sets Shoot Date for Danish Royal Drama ‘By the Grace of God,’ Preps ‘Britta’ From ‘Borgen’s’ Adam Price (EXCLUSIVE)
Studiocanal’s Scandi powerhouse SAM Productions, co-founded by star writers Adam Price (“Borgen,” “Ride Upon the Storm”), S?ren Sveistrup (“The Killing,” “The Chestnut Man”) and producer Meta Louise F?ldager S?rensen, is gearing up for an expansive slate of event series most-likely to shake the Kingdom of Denmark and take global viewers by storm.
“We’re working on our biggest slate ever,” said S?rensen, credited for more than 60 films and series, including the Oscar-nominated “A Royal Affair,” “The Wife,” starring Glenn Close, and Lars von Trier’s Cannes winner “Melancholia.”
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Toplining SAM’s TV projects is “By the Grace of God,” Denmark’s own version of “The Crown” based on the life of Queen Margrethe II from her birth in 1940 until her abdication earlier this year. Filming of the blockbuster series, ordered by Danish commercial pubcaster TV2, is due to start in August 2025. Sara Namer (“The Orchestra,” “In Your Arms”) serves as producer.
Based on an original idea by Sveistrup, the biggest-ever fiction drama about the Danish ruling monarchs, will turn on their lives from the perspectives of both royal members and court royal employees, laced with political intrigue. But most of all, it will be a story about “a girl and her family,” runs a TV2 statement. Thor Bj?rn Krebs, creator and writer of SAM’s “Pros and Cons” (repped internationally by Studiocanal), serves as head writer.
“To tell the story of a royal family is to tell the story of a country,” said S?rensen. While admitting not being a royalist, SAM’s CEO said she immediately fell for Sveistrup’s idea. “It will be fascinating to get closer to the Palace where everything is at high stakes, starting with the birth of Queen Margrethe II in 1940, seven days after the Germans occupied Denmark.”
The key with the rich material, she added, will be “to stay close to the humans, the real people behind the royals.”
S?rensen said her outfit is in contact with Amalienborg Palace (the official home in Copenhagen of the royal family), but they haven’t spoken directly to Queen Margrethe II, who is also known as a gifted illustrator, painter and production designer, credited for Bille August’s Netflix feature “Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction.”
“She is a true artist, but naturally she can’t take part in this project,” said the TV executive, currently financing the mega-project. Quizzed about the budget, S?rensen didn’t give a figure but said: “It’s a very expensive project and one of the biggest ever for TV2. We will have to hunt for every possible source of financing, and as we don’t have tax incentives in Denmark, we’ll probably have to shoot outside of Denmark, which feels totally wrong!!”
Regarding the casting and asked whether different actors would play the royals at different stages of their lives, as in “The Crown,” S?rensen said: “We’re working on a large time scale. We’re not sure yet how we will cast the characters or if we will use AI to age the actors. It might be a mix of both.” According to S?rensen, who serves as executive producer, TV2 sits for the moment on international rights.
True Crime
Next up for SAM Productions and TV2 Denmark is “Britta,” a true crime from the Bafta-winning showrunner Price, based on one of Denmark’s biggest frauds of public funds ever.
The four-part series turns on the case of Danish social worker Britta Nielsen, convicted in 2020 of stealing DKK 117 million ($17 million) of public coin meant for vulnerable people. She was arrested in South Africa, where her family owned several properties, and extradited to Denmark.
“I was fascinated when I first read about Britta Nielsen and, not least, tried to link the spectacular million-dollar fraud with the photos of the abandoned office clerk, who had received the Queen’s Medal of Merit as recently as the year before, when she was finally exposed,” said “Borgen” creator Price in a statement.
“It’s also the real live story of a woman from a modest background, whose dream was to offer a better life to her three children,” said S?rensen.
Production is due to start in 2025 under the helm of SAM’s regular collaborator Mogens Hagedom (Netflix’s “Ragnarok”).
After true-royal and true-crime projects, SAM will turn to true-spy. “We’re doing several shows about secret service scandals in Denmark and recently acquired the book “Skygger p? Silkevejen (which translates to “Shadows on the Silk Road”) written by the former spy chief Lars Findsen,” S?rensen said. Findsen co-authored the John le Carré-style spy thriller with the seasoned writer Jacob Weinreich, behind the Netflix hit movie “Loving Adults” and several best-selling novels written with Anders R?nnow Klarlund under the pseudonym A. J. Kazinski.
While waiting for the greenlighting of several other mega-projects, SAM is fully immersed in the production of Season 2 Netflix’s thriller “The Chestnut Man,” based on Sveistrup’s best-selling eponymous novel. Danica Curcic and Mikkel Boe F?lsgaard are reprising their roles as investigators Mark Hess and Naia Thulin.
Milad Alami (“When the Dust Settles,” “The Opponent”) serves as concept director, with Dorte Warn?e H?gh and Emilie Lebech Kaae sharing writing credits. Delivery of the standalone sequel series is set for 2026.
Nordic expansion
Asked about her close collaboration with Netflix, S?rensen said: “They are fantastic playmates. They are among the biggest players in the world and could easily run me over when we do deals or when we talk creative stuff, but they don’t. They are great listeners and truly dear to me.”
Regarding the partnership with French group Studiocanal, which has a 25% stake in the Copenhagen/Stockholm-based banner, S?rensen said, “All the stars lined up beautifully when we started working together ten years ago. We didn’t quite realize how good it would be for us. That’s allowed us to be one of the biggest players in Scandinavia.”
Today, pressured like most Danish content providers to cut its workforce and overheads to face the harsher market conditions, SAM is a leaner and meaner structure, and co-founder Sveistrup recently left the group to focus on his literary ambitions. “It doesn’t change anything for us; we still have the rights to ‘The Chestnut Man,'” S?rensen said.
Going forward, the seasoned producer plans to expand in the Nordics across series with SAM Productions, feature films with her sister company Meta Film, and non-scripted withPrice’s A&M Productions, credited notably for DR’s show “Ber?mte M?ltider” in which Price stars as a TV-chef alongside Frederikke Legaard.
“The market might be half the size compared to five years ago, but we’ve learned to sharpen our skills. We’re very good at strategizing, getting deals done, and we’ve never had that many opportunities,” S?rensen said.
At Mipcom, Studiocanal is repping several SAM series, including the comedy “The Orchestra,” sold earlier to France Televisions for France, SBS for Australia, Lumiere Group for the Benelux, and Filmin for Spain and Portugal.
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