David Farnor | On 31, Oct 2016

Nobody does TV thrillers quite like Sweden, Norway, Denmark and their other chillingly gripping brethren. So while the BBC has made itself the Saturday night home of subtitled shows, and Channel 4 has launched Walter Presents, a streaming service dedicated to foreign-language TV (from Nordic noir and beyond), it’s no surprise that Netflix has nabbed its own Scandi original: The Rain.

The VOD service has ordered a first season of the thriller from Miso Film (Dicte, 1864). Set after a devastating biological catastrophe, The Rain is created by Jannik Tai Mosholt (Borgen), Esben Toft Jacobsen (The Great Bear, Beyond Beyond) and Christian Potalivo (The Pig, The New Tenants, Long Story Short). The series will be written by Mosholt, who will be showrunning alongside producer Christian Potalivo.

The series takes place 10 years after a brutal virus has wiped out most of the population in Scandinavia, as two young siblings embark on a search for safety. Only guided by their father’s notebook about the virus and the hazards of this new world, they start a dangerous journey through the country, joining a group of other young survivors. Facing grave perils, the group must quickly realize that the greatest danger does not come from the outside – it comes from within.

Jannik Tai Mosholt says: “I’m interested in finding out what we humans will do if the day should come when civilization as we know it vanishes. And I want to see it through the eyes of youth. Those who are too young to understand it all when everything and everyone disappears around them, and who then have to find out who they are and what they will become. In broad terms, The Rain is a story about hope and finding out what there is to hope for when all hope seems gone. It’s a story about responsibility and whether survival is about the individual or the group. It’s a story about humanity and what defines us as humans. And it’s a story about experiencing everything for the first time in a world where there’s no-one to tell you how to react. Love, hate, sadness, joy and hope”.

“Miso Film is extremely proud to produce the first Netflix original series in Scandinavia. We have been focusing on high-end drama series since we established the company in 2004 and collaborating with Netflix on The Rain will be a new milestone for our company,” says Peter Bose, Producer and CEO at Miso Film.

“We are honored to work with Jannik, Christian and Miso — all great contributors to the rise in Scandinavian television over the last couple of years,” adds Erik Barmack, VP of International original series at Netflix. “And we believe that Netflix will be the perfect global platform to showcase their talents.”

The Scandi Walking Dead? Between but with more brains? You’ll have to wait until 2018 to find out, when The Rain premieres on Netflix worldwide.

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