Germany’s ZDF Studios has teamed up with Iceland’s ACT4 to develop the Nordic crime thriller ‘Big Brother’, based on Icelandic author Skuli Sigurdsson’s award-winning debut novel ‘Stóri Bródir’.
A story of revenge and justice, ‘Big Brother’ revolves around a mysterious figure in black who, every full moon, viciously attacks someone before disappearing into the night. The victims, all unpunished sex offenders, are carefully selected.
A detective and an investigative journalist work together to solve these crimes, while the story also unfolds from the perspective of this enigmatic attacker, who sees himself as an agent of justice for the victims failed by society.
Actor, producer, screenwriter and co-founder of ACT4 Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (“The Tourist”, “Severance”) will serve as showrunner and executive producer. He heads the writers’ room, which includes actress Aníta Briem who wrote and created the series “As Long as We Live,” as well as Anna Gunndís Guðmundsdóttir and Teitur Magnússon.
Ólafsson said: “As crime fiction, the story of ‘Big Brother’ is exciting and brutal, a very exciting story. It rises above its genre because it poses a difficult question for our society: someone takes it upon themselves to punish sex offenders when our justice system fails. Gradually his actions become more brutal and he begins to kill his victims. Who do we side with, the self-proclaimed warrior of justice or the people trying to catch a murderer?’
“We are thrilled to be working with ACT4 on the adaptation of Skuli Sigurdsson’s brilliantly crafted novel. The characters, the telling of the story from two different perspectives and the heightened tension as the plot unfolds make for a chilling, binge-worthy drama,” said Yi Qiao, drama director, ZDF Studios.
ACT4 was founded in 2023 by a group of award-winning Icelandic film industry veterans consisting of Ólafsson (‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, ‘True Detective: Night Country’, ‘The Tourist’), Hörður Rúnarsson (‘Black Sands’, “Fractures,” “Reis”), Jónas Margeir Ingólfsson (“The Minister” 1 & 2, “Stella Blómkvist II,” “Thin Ice”) and Birkir Blær Ingólfsson (“The Minister” 1 & 2, “Thin Ice”) .
They joined forces with a group of international investors, built the new indie-Scandinavian production powerhouse and last year chose “Big Brother” as one of the first projects for the big screen.
Author Sigurdsson, a lawyer and former journalist, won the Icelandic Crime Novel Award and was nominated for the Glass Key Award.
In recent news, ZDF Studios collaborated with Spanish broadcaster RTVE and Galician production house Portocabo on the procedural “Weiss & Morales,” which began filming in the Canary Islands last April.
