Michael Fassbender is in talks to star as the hardboiled Oslo detective Harry Hole in Hollywood’s long-gestating adaptation of the Jo Nesbø crime novel The Snowman, reports Variety.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s Tomas Alfredson was announced as the director of the film, based on the seventh of Nesbø’s bestselling books, in April last year. Martin Scorsese, who was expected to take charge of the cameras when the project was first announced four years ago, will now take an executive producer’s role.

The Snowman sees Nesbø’s maverick cop investigating what appears to be Norway’s first serial killer, a murderer who always leaves a snowman near the scene of his crime. The author came to prominence in Britain with the publication in 2006 of his Harry Hole novel The Redbreast. The Snowman joins a further nine books about the maverick cop that have cemented Nesbø’s reputation as one of the more prominent of the current wave of Scandinavian writers.



The Snowman is being set up at UK production company Working Title and studio Universal. Hollywood has had mixed success with adapting Scandi crime novels so far: Sony’s English-language, David Fincher-directed and Daniel Craig-led remake of Sweden’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, based on the hugely popular Stieg Larsson novel, scored a decent $232.6m worldwide in 2011 on the back of strong reviews, but nevertheless failed to spark an expected sequel.

Swedish director Alfredson is also known for the icy 2008 horror Let the Right One In. His adaptation of John le Carré’s cold-war spy novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy saw star Gary Oldman pick up an Oscar nomination for his role as taciturn British intelligence agent George Smiley.

Fassbender is expected to be part of the awards season conversation for his turn in the Danny Boyle-directed biopic Steve Jobs, currently at the Telluride film festival, where it screened at the weekend. The Heidelberg-born actor will also be seen opposite Marion Cotillard in the Shakespeare adaptation Macbeth, from Snowtown director Justin Kurzel, which is due in UK cinemas on 2 October and arrives in the US on 4 December.