Denmark has done it with ‘The Killing’, ‘Borgen’ and 'The Legacy'. Sweden has done it with ‘Wallander’ and the two countries teamed up to do it with ‘The Bridge’. But until now, Norway had not succeeded in riding the ‘Nordic Noir’ craze by having a hit series remade for an international audience. 

 

That is set to change now that the series ‘Øyevitne’ (Eyewitness) has been bought by NBC Universal, which plans to produce an American version of the Norwegian hit for the cable channel USA Network. 

 

See also: What makes Danish TV so cool?

 

“The American TV market is the best and they create an incredible amount of well-produced content. That they come here and want to have something that we have made is a big feather in the hat of Norwegian drama,” NRK spokesman Ivar Køhn told his own network. 

 

‘Øyevitne’ is about two teenage boys who witness four biker types get gunned down in a forest. The boys are spotted by the gunman but escape and then keep quiet about what they saw out of fear that their secret sexual relationship will be revealed. 

 

 

“Norway’s incredible show ‘Eyewitness’ follows a horrific crime story through the unlucky and unlikely eyes of two innocent witnesses. It’s a bone chilling thrill ride that not only exposes the details of a crime, but also the secrets of the witnesses who watched,” Dawn Olmstead, an executive of development at Universal Cable Productions, told Variety. 

 

American screenwriter Adi Hasak will helm the remake. He praised Norwegian creator Jarl Emsell Larsen’s vision for the original. 

 

“I was really inspired by Jarl’s execution of the series, not to mention the fact that he placed two gay teenage boys central to the action along with a female inspector who must choose between her career and family,” Hasak told NRK. 

 

“There have been several series to come out under the Nordic Noir genre, but Jarl takes this production to a whole new level,” he added. 

 

While NRK might be excited by the remake, there is certainly no guarantee that it will be a hit. Despite the success of the Danish original ‘Forbrydelsen’, the US version of ‘The Killing’ had a hard time breaking through and was cancelled by AMC twice before the series concluded on Netflix. 

 

The US version of ‘The Bridge’ was dropped by FX after just two seasons, while the Danish-Swedish version appears likely to return for a fourth.

 

The Danish political drama ‘Borgen’ was due to be remade for NBC but that version never saw the light of day. HBO now owns the rights to a remake but no premiere date has been announced.