Welcome to Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key executives and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. After a little hiatus, we’re back with Hope Studios founder Fredrik Wikström Nicastro. The longtime SF Studios exec launched his production banner in 2023, after working on breakout success A Man Called Otto with SF, with an aim to prioritize optimistic stories with strong IP. Hope Studios has just wrapped Anxious People with Angelina Jolie and The Night House with Aaron Paul.
As Hollywood studios brace for more consolidation and foreign presales continue to move at a glacial pace for the indie sector, it’s a tough time for the film industry. But Hope Studios founder Fredrik Wikström Nicastro remains an optimist.
The former SF Studios exec, who produced Swedish Oscar nominee A Man Called Ove as well as its English-language remake A Man Called Otto with Tom Hanks, is barely two years into his new banner but has already wrapped shooting two ambitious indie films in tandem: Anxious People, an uplifting comedy starring Angelina Jolie, Aimee Lou Wood and Jason Segel, and Aaron Paul and Jacob Tremblay horror The Night House.
“I’m an eternal optimist,” Wikström Nicastro tells Deadline from the set of Anxious People, which is the first film to shoot at Pinewood’s Indie Film Hub in the UK. “We want to give inspiration, and we want to tell stories that give people a glimpse of hope and instil a belief in humanity. I think that the power of believing in a better world or a better future is very powerful.”
Despite being wildly different genres, both are reflective of the slate he aspires to build at Hope Studios – human stories based on literary adaptations with optimistic DNA. Anxious People is the latest film adaptation from A Man Called Ove author Fredrik Backman while The Night House is based on the 2023 horror novel by famed Norwegian author Jo Nesbø.
“We want to focus solely on English-language projects for the international market and are aiming to make around two bigger films per year across different genres,” he says. “We are generally very focused on IP and book adaptation specifically. We read a huge number of books.”
Anxious People reunites the team from A Man Called Otto, with Marc Forster returning to direct a script from David Magee. The New York Times Bestseller is Backman’s biggest success after A Man Called Ove, having sold more than 6 million copies worldwide.
Set on the day before Christmas Eve, the story follows investment banker Zara (Jolie) who begrudgingly finds herself mingling with a group or strangers at an open house. When a reluctant bank robber inadvertently takes the group hostage, chaos and oversharing ensues.
The project came together shortly after A Man Called Otto, when Wikström Nicastro approached Backman about doing an English-language feature of Anxious People. When he secured those rights, he reached out to Magee and Forster’s producing partner Renée Wolfe. “We basically got the crew back together for another film,” he says.
Tre Vanner
Black Bear launched international sales on the title in Cannes earlier this year as part of the company’s first-look international sales deal with Hope Studios while Forster’s 2DUX banner, which he co-founded with Wolfe, financed the gap. While Wikström Nicastro won’t reveal the film’s budget, he does admit that “it’s a very ambitious independent film.”
“Black Bear did the international sales and are a partner in the film,” he says. “They’re also distributing in certain territories, so they have been instrumental in putting the film together.”
The Night House, meanwhile, was launched by Protagonist Pictures at EFM in February. Wikström Nicastro already knew Nesbø and read the novel before it was published. “It’s really different from his other books because he’s usually into crimes and thrillers but this is a horror very much in the same tone as Stephen King.”
The story follows highschooler Richard (Tremblay) who has been sent to live with relatives in a remote town after the death of his parents. One day, during an innocent prank call in a phone booth, he shockingly witnesses his classmate violently get sucked into a phone receiver and disappear without a trace. Police suspect Richard is responsible, but no-one believes his story except for a fellow teenage outsider.
“It’s a very intelligent story that takes place across two timelines,” says Wikström Nicastro. “But there is a social meaning to the whole story that really resonates with the kind of stories we want to make. When I finished reading it, I just felt we had hit the jackpot.”
That project, he says, came together fast. “We developed it really quickly and then we put it into production within a year and a half.”
The film was shot largely in Spain’s Basque Country as well as the UK and Wikström Nicastro brought writer-director Jesper Ganslandt, whom he had previously worked with on the Swedish TV series Snabba Cash, to the project along with prolific genre producer Steven Schneider (Paranormal Activity, Insidious). “Jesper has wanted to do horror for a long time,” says Wikström Nicastro.
While sales for either project have yet to be revealed, Wikström Nicastro notes that this is, unfortunately, par for the course in today’s marketplace with U.S. buyers continuing to come to the table late in the game.
“Our key challenge is very much what everyone’s key challenge is – that the marketplace is more defensive,” he says. “Yes, buyers aren’t paying as much, and they’d rather wait and see the film and that is a huge difference from a few years ago. The cost of production hasn’t gone down and it’s actually rising when you take inflation into account. So, that’s a huge challenge for everyone.”
He continues: “The marketplace will swing back. We’re in a temporary slump and that people still love good content. The challenge for us who make films is to satisfy audiences who are demanding more when it comes to quality. I don’t think people have time to watch mediocre content anymore so it’s really up to us make high-quality content and there are a lot of opportunities in that space.”
When pressed on whether Black Bear’s new U.S. distribution strand would be a good fit for the films, in particular Anxious People, Wikström Nicastro says: “Maybe that will be our organic partner – we’ll see.”
Scandi roots
Before he established Hope Studios, Wikström Nicastro spent nearly two decades at Nordic powerhouse SF Studios where he produced local-language films including the Joel Kinnaman thriller Snabba Cash (Easy Money), which he also co-wrote and spawned a Netflix series in 2021. But he always felt there was opportunity in making European films for global markets.
“In Europe, we tend to make films initially in our own language for local markets and I did that for some time,” he says. “But I always wondered why we were so local and so focused on our own territories. When talent breaks through or maybe an IP got a huge following, it would be exported to Hollywood. I’ve always felt that we needed to create a bigger platform for ourselves in Europe. In Sweden, for instance, we’re very good at music, videogames, design and fashion. But in film, where we have amazing talent and actors, we didn’t have any tradition of doing things with a global, international reach.”
‘A Man Called Otto’
© Sony Pictures Entertainment / Courtesy Everett Collection
With this in mind, Wikström Nicastro got the board of SF Studios to “start thinking bigger” and he was tasked with heading up international expansion at the company in 2017. “I set up this division out of London where we hired a few execs and we developed, produced and financed films for the global markets. So, we really took that step and it was a great journey and was very rewarding.”
Projects included Shia LaBeouf starrer Borg vs. McEnroe and, crucially, the English-language remake of A Man Called Ove. SF Studios paid for development of the U.S. version, dubbed A Man Called Otto, with no studio or streamer attached. When a script was in place and Forster aboard to direct, SF took a risk as a financier and greenlit the film itself. Fortunately, says Wikström Nicastro, it was a bet that paid off.
A Man Called Otto sparked a bidding war at the Berlin Film Festival’s virtual European Film Market in 2022 before being snapped up by Sony Pictures for a massive $60M, marking the biggest EFM deal ever at the time. The film went on to earn $113M at the global box office, bringing a much-needed feelgood factor to cinemas and distributors who were still suffering after the pandemic.
“It was a great journey and a great success and was a very rewarding film,” says Wikström Nicastro. “In retrospect, it was the right time for me, on a personal level, to build from that.”
After 18 years at SF Studios, Wikström Nicastro decided to go out on his own and established Hope Studios. With offices in Sweden and London, he’s hopeful that the company’s European roots give it a competitive advantage, particularly when it comes to knowledge of European subsidy systems.
“We really try to optimize the cheapest and most quality-efficient way to make the film out of the different European subsidy systems and I think that is an advantage for us. The system here is not really made for American studios and companies and we’ve specialized in trying to find the best way to be cost efficient across physical production.”
The Night House is a prime example of this in that Hope Studios was able to shoot the majority of the film in Spain’s Basque Country, which now has a new 60% rebate if more than 50% of production expenses are incurred locally.
“It’s complicated when you go into a territory that has a new rebate system because it’s not as tried and tested as other regions, so that’s been a learning curve for everyone,” he says.
Up next, Hope Studios is developing a raft of projects with “some of the biggest authors in the world right now”, including a film adaptation of Robin Sharma’s bestselling book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. But it’s too early to lift the lid on those yet he says.
What he does double down on is the company’s clear mandate: “We’re very specific in that we want to do stories that have something hopeful or inspiring at the core of it all. That’s why the company is named what it is. So, we’re not going to forget that in the next ten years.”
