16/03/2016 - Veteran producer Egil Ødegård is preparing the shoot for the high-stakes spy film co-written by John Carew, of the Norwegian national soccer team, who will also play the lead

Norwegian producer Egil Ødegård, of Oslo’s Filmhuset, who has been involved in more than 30 features, recently as a co-producer of Icelandic directors Benedikt Erlingsson’s Of Horses and Men [+see also:
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interview: Benedikt Erlingsson
film profile] (2013) and Baltasar Kormákur’s The Deep [+see also:
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film profile] (2012), is preparing his so-far most expensive project, the €21 million Black Frost. 

Produced by Filmhuset, with Norwegian regional film centre FilmCamp in Tromsø, and backed by US and British investors, “Black Frost is a high-stakes spy film, a blend of spectacular action and high-octane comedy set all around the world, but mostly in Norway,” according to Ødegård.

It is based on an original idea by Norwegian former professional footballer John Carew, now an actor (having starred in such films as US director Robert Rice’s Dead of Winter and Norwegian director Irasj Asanti’s Chieftains). Carew will write the screenplay with British director Varon Bonicos, who will also direct him in the lead role.

Starting next year, 70% of the film will be shot in the Tromsø region of Northern Norway, “which impressed the American investors a lot”, said FilmCamp’s head of production, Svein Andersen, who also introduced Carew to the province. “My character grew up in the north, so I will spend some time there to develop the role,” Carew added. “I will be sort of an agent, a mixture of James Bond and Jason Bourne, but a little more charming.”

Carew formerly played for such European clubs as West Ham United, Aston Villa, Roma, Valencia and Olympique Lyonnais, in addition to taking part in 91 matches for the Norwegian national team, before he retired in 2012. Ødegård would like to see Black Frost as the opening film of the Tromsø International Film Festival in 2018 – his production of Norwegian director Knut Erik Jensen’s Stella Polaris launched the showcase in 1993 and received the Norwegian Film Critics’ Prize.

In Black Frost, Carew will play Felix Frost, “who is everything a man could ever want to be: super spy, one-man army, great cook, even better golf player, handsome, tall, bald”. But his perfect life is turned upside down when he unexpectedly gets a daughter – he had no idea that she existed until she was dropped off by his front door. Luckily, the world needs to be saved again – probably from a shady organisation blackmailing the world’s leaders – so he sets off with his scientist partner, Dr Spanky Fujitsu.