A top American film director has advised his fellow director Martin Scorsese against trying to make a new film based on Jo Nesbø’s crime novel Snømannen entirely on location in Norway. Norwegian officials aren’t pleased.
David Fincher, who has won Oscar nominations for his direction of films including The Social Network, told newspaper Aftenposten that he had a difficult and expensive experience trying to film scenes in Norway himself. Fincher has directed the new US version of the Swedish crime novel Menn som hater kvinnor (“Men who hate women,” but called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in English) and ran into challenges while filming a scene at Oslo’s main airport at Gardermoen.
“It was incredibly difficult to get permission to set up a camera,” Fincher told Aftenposten. “It was very expensive, too.” He thinks Montreal could be an alternative filming location for Scorsese’s version of “The Snowman.”
Scorsese said recently that he’d like to do all the filming on location in Norway, where the book is set, if possible. Fincher doubts that’s a good idea. “Norway is difficult,” he said. “We were there three days and filmed half-a-day. It was tough.”
Norwegian film promoters went on the defensive, denying it was any more expensive or bureaucratic to film in Norway than in Sweden, where Fincher filmed most of the Swedish book. “They must have been extremely unlucky,” Truls Kontny of Film Commission Norway told Aftenposten. He claimed he’s had good feedback from other directors and that as many as 150 film teams work in Norway every year.
Another producer said the scene Fincher filmed involved special airport regulations and security issues, along with special fees. An airport spokesman claimed film teams face similar challenges and extra expense at airports in the US as well.
Views and News staff