23/02/2024 - Provisionally titled Bad Moon Rising, the film's script was first written in 1998, and has gone through minimal changes since, according to the Norwegian filmmaker

Jon Fosse (left, © Tom A. Kolstad/Det norske samlaget), Erik Poppe (right, © Maximilian Bühn)

Based on a 26-year-old script from celebrated Norwegian playwright, poet and novelist Jon Fosse, Erik Poppe’s film — provisionally titled Bad Moon Rising — will follow the story of a couple, from their first meeting and their life together, which includes raising a son, to their separation, showing the ways each former partner copes with the breakup. The Norwegian director was meeting with potential financiers for the project at this year’s European Film Market in Berlin. The news was first reported by Screen.

Poppe was first given the script by Fosse 26 years ago, and the two artists have built successful careers in the years since. Fosse is one of the most popular playwrights working today, with his plays performed globally. He is also a celebrated novelist, notably for the Septology series, his sensitive and almost meditative writing often focusing on the small moments and big questions of life. In 2023, he won the coveted Nobel Prize for Literature, which followed many other Norwegian and international prizes in recognition of his work as a playwright and novelist, including the prestigious International Ibsen Award in 2010 recognising significant contributions to theatre and drama. 

Poppe, also from Norway, has adapted the works of celebrated writers before, most recently with The Emigrants [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] (2021), based on the Swedish literature classic by Vilhelm Moberg. His 2016 epic war drama The King’s Choice [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erik Poppe
film profile] was picked as the Norwegian entry at the Oscars, while U - July 22 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erik Poppe
film profile], based on the 2011 Utøya summer camp massacre, premiered in Competition at the 2018 Berlinale. 

Poppe will produce the film via his own company Paradox. The extent of Fosse’s involvement in the project, beyond writing this original script, will be decided before production. “He’s strongly supporting that we finally will make a movie based on this script,” Poppe told Screen. “The next step is for me to go into the project and start to break it up, finding locations and actors.” Production is set to begin in September 2024 in Norway, and casting is already underway.