Beck and Character Adaptations

Abstract

The authors analyse the development of Nordic crime dramas in the 1990s and its reliance on the significant role of various Beck productions, the shift towards an increased market-oriented production model and the slow move away from cinema orientation towards VHS/DVD wholesale. The authors introduce character adaptations as a concept that shows the importance of series based on characters from crime literature, but as for the cases of Beck, Wallander, The Fjällbacka Murders and Dicte, most of these series use the literature as inspiration for characters rather than storyline. In the chapter, the authors reveal the slow change of film and television drama, primarily by way of character adaptations, from mostly adaptations for film and television to original television productions.