In a tough Nordic market that is slowing recovering from the downfall of Viaplay and streamers scaling back on commissions, Miso Film, the Fremantle-owned Nordic powerhouse behind Tobias Lindholm’s “The Investigation” and “Those Who Kill,” isn’t just hanging in there; it’s thriving.
The banner is still helmed by its founding duo Peter Bose and Jonas Allen, who have produced a flurry of iconic series, including “Beck” and “Wallander,” as well as “Those Who Kill,” “Dicte” and “1864.” They’re now celebrating Miso Film‘s 20th anniversary with a packed slate of high-end shows and films featuring top Scandinavian talent.
Miso recently premiered Tomas Alfredson’s “Faithless,” an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s movie, in competition at Toronto Film Festival, and they’re now six-episode series based on Linn Ullmann’s bestselling novel “The Cold Song” and “Royal Blood,” a sprawling historical project set in 1807 when royal families clashed across Denmark-Norway and Sweden.
The latest title to join their production roster, “Uniform,” is a six-part primetime crime series commissioned by Danish broadcaster that will be entirely directed by Janus Metz (“Armadillo,””True Detective”), and was penned by Oscar Giese (“2 Days”) and Anders August (“Follow The Money”).
The series starts filming in March on location in Copenhagen with Nordic superstars, including Lena Maria Christensen (“Face to Face”) and Jakob Cedergren (“The Guilty”), alongside Marco Ilsø (“Bullshit”), Clara Rosager (“1899”) Gustav Giese (“The Quiet Ones”), Soheil Bavi (“Darkland”), Simon Sears (“Those Who Kill”) and Sarah Boberg (“The Bridge”).
“Uniform” takes place in the aftermath of a case involving a trainee from the Police Academy who “shoots and kills an aggressive young man during a violent arrest. The case raises questions about the use of force and police training. Pressure grows on the academy’s new principal, Sanne Hammerby, while Internal Affairs investigates the case. The truth seems increasingly unclear, and both trainees and employees are confronted with the difficult choices and great responsibility that comes with wearing the uniform,” the synopsis reads.
Bose praised August and Giese for having penned an “engaging and relevant story, will be wonderfully articulated under the direction of Janus Metz with his unique style and creative vision.” Bose is producing the series with Sofie Bergstein and Jonas Allen at Miso Film.
Metz, meanwhile, said “The Uniform” “works with many of the same themes that I dealt with in ‘Armadillo.’” The latter is Metz’s 2010 thriller about Danish soldiers who were sent to Afghanistan in 2009.
“I am looking forward to bringing a series about the formation of the Danish police to life. What is special about the series is that it takes place in a school,” Metz said. “This way, we meet our characters during training. It is police work set in a coming-of-age setting that I have not seen treated before on Danish soil.” “Uniform” is expected to premiere on DR in early 2026 and has already been sold to public broadcasters SVT in Sweden, NRK in Norway, YLE in Finland and RUV in Iceland.
Two years years ago, the Danish production sector got hit with a 50% drop in commissions after streamers froze commissions due to a fight over a residuals with Create Denmark, a guild representing actors and filmmakers, among others. Viaplay, once the leading local streamer and commissioner of Nordic series, went nearly bankrupted and is now hardly doing any originals. But Bose says it wasn’t just Viaplay going down, it was also “HBO withdrawing from the market, and Disney scaling back on doing local stuff,” he says.
Being part of Fremantle helped Miso stay afloat and develop a raft of projects during the crisis. As such, Allen says he and Bose were able to fund development themselves with support from Fremantle. That means that by the time streamers started buying again, Miso already had a few good titles up its sleeves.
“At that time, a lot of people were just running panically and Peter and I just sat together and decided to go back to projects we believed in, to the core of our business which is all about high-end dramas and great creative talent on board,” Allen says, adding they’re now “more diverse in terms of (their) clients, including public broadcasters, commercial networks and the streamers who are still in in the market.”
The silverlining of these tumultuous years is that Nordic broadcasters have stepped up to the plate, the duo says. Taking risks on original stories is also part of Miso Film’s DNA and Allen says a big part of their jobs as producers is to find the right partners for each project, even those who require some “courage.”
Bose says “Royal Blood” also underscores Miso Film’s ambition to tell stories that relevant to the Nordic region but can also resonate universally. “‘Royal Blood’ is Scandinavian in tone and in relevance and in substance,” he says. The company has also dived into romantic comedies and dramedies in recent years. The company, which is one of Netflix’s largest purveyors of Nordic series, recently produced “A Copenhagen Love Story” about a young couple on a mission to conceive a child and navigating fertility treatments, for the streamer.
Ultimately, Miso’s success lies in big part to its relationship with creative talent. “Having access to these talented filmmakers and actors is a huge part and also been a huge part of our strategy since the creation of our company 20 years ago. The producers are also keeping their slate at a manageable size of 10-15 projects to “ensure that we can fully focus on realizing our vision for each one,” says Bose.
“Peter and Jonas have built a wonderful culture at Miso for pushing creative boundaries with an impeccable taste for finding flagship IP with great local talent that competes on a global stage and makes a difference,” says Christian Vesper, Fremantle’s CEO Global Drama and Film. “In a challenging market facing considerable changes, they have shown tremendous leadership in delivering exceptional shows for streamers, and PSBs, to stabilise, and restructure the company for strong international growth in what is an historic moment as they celebrate 20 years of creating Miso magic,” Vesper continued.
