A good summary of these wonderful news has been published by Chris Evans at ScreenDaily International as follows:
Sweden’s Nice Entertainment and FLX Film have taken the film rights to Jonas Jonasson’s best-selling novel The Centenarian Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared. Respected Swedish director Felix Herngren of FLX Film will direct the project, which is expected to go into production in the summer of 2012.
Nice Entertainment and FLX Film beat off strong competition from around twenty other companies also competing for the rights to the book. According to Pontas “the economical offer and creative proposition from FLX and Nice with Felix Herngren as the front figure was the reason for the author’s final choice.”
The book tells the story of an old man called Allan who is on the verge of celebrating his 100th birthday, but decides to flee from the waiting press by escaping through the window of his old people’s home and from there on we are taken on a journey back through his life involving memorable adventures and historical moments of the 20th Century, including brushes with Winston Churchill, President Truman and Chairman Mao.
“We see it as a cross between The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Forrest Gump,” Anna Soler-Pont, director of Pontas told ScreenDaily.
“It is enormously fun to receive the trust to make a film out of this fantastic story,” added Herngren. “The Centenarian captivated me from the first page, it is a humoristic masterpiece made to be shot.”
The Centenarian has already sold around 500,000 copies in Sweden where it picked up the Book Seller’s prize and the Iris audio book prize, and has been bought by leading publishing houses all over the world.
Swedish author Jonas Jonasson’s professional background is as a journalist and media consultant. He is currently working on his second novel.
For more information : Carina Brandt – carina@pontas-agency.com