Whiskey on the Rocks Creators Unveil Two New Premium Series

Patrick Nebout and Henrik Jansson-Schweizer, creators of the multi-prized “Whiskey on the Rocks” which smashed rankings data on Disney+/SVT, have unveiled two new premium initiatives from their boutique Stockholm-based manufacturing home Dramanation: Nordic Noir actioner “Becker & Kempe” and Cold War heist dramedy “Made in Sweden.”

They be part of the already announced English-language homicide thriller collection “To Catch A Murderer” (aka “The Studio”).

Embodying Dramanation’s mission to make what Nebout calls “splashy, high-profile TV-series and films with international resonance,” Nebout and Jansson-Schweizer will deliver to market “Becker & Kempe” and “Made in Sweden” at this week’s    

Göteborg’s TV Drama Vision, the Swedish pageant’s TV convention forum and market which runs Jan. 27-26.

A Nordic Noir crime and cop-actioner, “Becker & Kempe” (a working title), is ready primarily in Göteborg, Sweden’s greatest port metropolis, turning on police detectives Milla Becer and Simon Kempe as they battle worldwide crime and corruption. Writing the screenplays are Morgan Jensen and Theo Gabay, authors of 4 bestselling novels, while Jensen’s screenwriting credit absorb SVT-Arte’s “Thicker than Water” and 5 episodes of propulsive ZFG-TV4 spy actioner “Agent Hamilton.”

The project is in co-development with a streamer: Dramanation is now in search of an extra local associate, Nebout told Variety.

Billed by Nebout as a “creative cousin” of Apple TV+’s  film “Tetris,” “Made in Sweden” is also solid by Nebout as a Cold War political thriller/dramedy in the vein of “Whiskey on the Rocks” and reuniting a lot of that collection’ artistic expertise: Screenwriter Jansson-Schweizer and director Björn Stein (“Midnight Sun”). 

“Made in Sweden” as soon as more tells a unprecedented however true story of how the Swedish authorities spearheads the sale of 1,000 Volvo 144 sedans to North Korea, when it sees North Korea as an profitable rising market. 

In “Made in Sweden,” the deal is led by an idealistic civil servant at Sweden’s Ministry of Trade, satisfied that commerce might counteract Cold War and that Sweden’s place as a impartial energy between the U.S. and the Soviet Union might additional this aim. Yet North Korea dallies on fee, and “Made in Sweden” takes on the pulse of a automotive heist espionage thriller as the KGB and CIA transfer in, questioning what’s actually behind the deal.

Nebout and Jansson-Schweizer calso o-created “To Catch a Murderer,” co-developed and co-produced with Germany’s Odeon Fiction as the lead studio and penned by U.Ok. writers Dan Gaster, Will Ing and Paul Powell (AMC-AcornTV’s “Art Detective”).

One of the duo’s profession by means of strains has been their worldwide ambition. At Nice Drama, they originated and produced “Midnight Sun” (2016) the high-concept and high-end homicide–thriller thriller starring Leila Bekhti (“A Prophet”) as a French police officer dispatched to analyze a homicide in Arctic Circle Sweden. Backed by Canal+ and SVT, it was billed as the first France-Sweden co-production.

Produced by Nebout and Jansson-Schweizer, with a number of other companions, “The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared,” Sweden’s greatest home hit grossing $22.9 million also broke out in Germany ($11.5 million) on its approach to a $51.2 million worldwide trawl.

Another touchstone is their perception in premium leisure. This stays despite – and because – of a plunge in Nordic scripted collection orders, down from 129 in 2022 to 57 in 2025, according to Ampere Analysis.

“We’ve gone from a market, especially talking about the streamers, where five plus years ago it was basically all about premium drama. Streaming services didn’t have much reality TV or light entertainment or any formats nor sport,” said Guy Bisson, who will ship a state of the market analysis, From Rubble to Reinvention: Reengineering Entertainment, at Göteborg’s TV Drama Vision on Jan. 27. 

“We’re talking about market trends, however. Nothing is black and white. There is still room and a market demand for premium drama,” Bisson added. 

As he ready to buy Dramanation’s new initiatives at TV Drama Vision, Nebout talked about this, his greater image strategy to local occasions, combined financing fashions and a profitable combo of top artistic expertise and IP.

Your two new collection replicate a perception there may be still a requirement for premium drama…..

Our strategy is mainly to disregard the surrounding state of panic and preserve the philosophy we’ve got adopted for over 15 years: focusing on distinctive scripted leisure with an authentic voice, no matter format or finances, or distribution platform or media. We consider audiences are still searching for event drama; the record-breaking rankings for our latest Disney+/SVT miniseries, ‘Whiskey on the Rocks,’ definitely help this. The area of interest and the marketplace for premium and compelling scripted leisure has positively not vanished. With all due respect to the vertical microdrama frenzy, we’re firmly sticking to horizontal, splashy drama.

“Becker & Kempe” will explore, I consider, worldwide crime and its ties in other nations, such as the Svalbards and Spain, among other backdrops. “Whiskey on the Rocks” and “Made in Sweden” image Sweden in the center of Cold War confrontation. Your collection, while playing out in Swedish panorama such as the memorable Arctic vistas of “Midnight Sun,” almost always have a global dimension. Could you remark?

The “wider picture ” might be the purple thread in most ideas and tales we select to interact with, develop and convey to the screens. No matter the style. We search for the ripple on the water – how a local  event or action can carry wider ramifications. It’s the butterfly impact. Globalization started in the nineteenth century, and today we’re inescapably interconnected. Crime has no boundaries, and geopolitics or ideologies now impression every particular person on the planet. Whether the story takes place in the Swedish Arctic or the streets of Paris, that rigidity between the remoted locale and the global stage is what we explore. It is the final gasoline for larger-than-life storytelling and high-stakes escapism. 

“Becker & Kempe” is an crime actioner, which you’ve made before as in the case of “Agent Hamilton.” It comes at a time when action film and collection, or titles with a strong action edge, account for a large proportion of big hits on platforms. Again, might you remark? 

Action, thriller, adventure are evergreen genres because they fulfill the crucial promise of escapism, particularly in troubled occasions. And by escapism I don’t imply that it’s essentially lighthearted leisure. To me, the magnificence and the true energy of the action edge lies in its versatility. When you infuse it as an ingredient into advanced or darker narratives and genres like crime or espionage, it provides that high-octane layer that heightens the stakes. So it’s no coincidence that action, in its many iterations and shapes, at present dominates global top 10s. It provides a common language.

Would you see “Made in Sweden” as a sequel to “Whiskey on the Rocks”

While not a sequel, “Made in Sweden” is a thematic cousin to “Whiskey on the Rocks,” and we goal to reunite the same artistic team. Once again, we inhabit the Cold War universe, impressed by an notorious true story, however seen by means of a different lens. Our take stays satirical, however we’re also leaning right into a heist-driven dramedic thriller. Another thematic cousin could be Apple’s “Tetris” – high-stakes and fast-paced, mixing rigidity with wit. We are exploring that inflexible historic period by means of a genre-bending narrative and compelling characters.

You say you’re co-developing “Becker & Kempe” with a streaming service however that you’re in search of an extra local associate. Do you see this combined financing mannequin as a method ahead for higher-end collection?

The new regular is that fastened fashions now not exist; the market evolves daily, and today’s setup could also be out of date tomorrow. However, for particular high-end collection, partnerships between worldwide streamers and local broadcasters provide a terrific path ahead. We form of pioneered this in the Nordics with “Whiskey on the Rocks,” a co-production between SVT and Disney+. Properly engineered, these ‘windowing’ collaborations are a win-win: they facilitate greater manufacturing values and shared threat for bold initiatives. Last however not least, this mannequin also permits producers to retain their IP – which is a elementary shift from the “fully streamer-funded and owned” mannequin. 

Two additional hallmarks of your collection are their combo of top artistic expertise, with hits under their belts as novelists or administrators, and IP, be that a historic event or a bestseller. Again, might you remark?

This is a deliberate strategy and positioning on our end. As a boutique targeted on scalable, distinctive tentpole drama, pairing top-tier expertise with highly effective and distinctive IP offers the essential edge to chop by means of the noise of a saturated market, providing companions and viewers the reassurance of high-end high quality. 

Whiskey on the Rocks

A enjoyable true-event nuclear disaster chronicle, half heat interval comedy and half LOL political satire “Whiskey on the Rocks” gained the 2025 Prix Italia, organized by RAI and backed by some 100 private and non-private broadcasters. It also scooped best TV drama at Sweden’s Kristallen TV Awards and best Nordic collection at the Aarhus Series Awards in Denmark, in addition to being nominated for a Rose d’Or.

On Swedish pubcaster SVT, the present hit record-breaking heights, with the first episode, which aired on Christmas Day 2024, securing a linear rating of roughly 1.2 million viewers. With catch-up and non-linear viewing on SVT Play, the whole attain for the collection averaged roughly 1.8 million viewers per episode, almost 1 in 6 Swedes watched the collection. Completion price was 93%.

Disney+’s first Nordic Original collection to premiere in choose nations, plus Hulu in the U.S, “Whiskey on the Rocks” begins in 1981 with the crew of a Soviet U-137 “Whiskey”-class submarine altering course because it heads residence. But it’s too drunk to set the new coordinates appropriately. The sub grounds on rocks within sight of the Sweden’s coast, deep in its territorial waters, and close to to its greatest naval base. It might properly be carrying nuclear warheads.

The collection’ sympathies lie with the abnormal folks on land in Sweden and in the Russian sub plus Sweden’s seemingly plodding premier who turns out to the a source of sanity, quite than the short-fused navy chiefs in the U.S., Sweden and Russia, just itching for navy action. 

“Whiskey and the Rocks” also packs memorable scenes such an telephone dialog between Ronald Reagan and dementia-wracked Leonard Brezhnev, saved by their translators’ smart diplomacy who keep away from a nuclear conflagration. “Leonard, you son of a motherless goat, it’s Ronald here,” Reagan greets Breshnev in jocular vogue, translated as “It’s a great honor for me to steal a moment of your precious time.” “You should go hang yourself,” solutions Brezhnev, rendered as “Greetings, honored President. To what do I owe this pleasure?” 

“We have three surveillance planes over your goddamn submarine and we need to know if  it is carrying any nuclear missiles,” Reagan barks when Brezhnev’s translator says the disaster is just a Russia-Sweden affair. But Brezhnev, by this time, has fallen asleep.