Whiskey on the Rocks makers unveil two new premium series

Patrick Nebout and Henrik Jansson-Schweizer, creators of the critically acclaimed “Whiskey on the Rocks” that shattered ratings on Disney+/SVT, have unveiled two new premium projects from their Stockholm-based boutique production house Dramanation: Nordic Noir actioner “Becker & Kempe” and the Cold War heist drama “Made in Sweden.”

They join the already announced English-language murder mystery series “To Catch A Murderer” (also known as “The Studio”).

Nebout and Jansson-Schweizer embody Dramanation’s mission to create what Nebout calls “splashy, thought-provoking TV series and films with international resonance.”

Gothenburg’s TV Drama Vision, the Swedish festival’s TV conference forum and market taking place from January 27 to 26.

A crime and cop Nordic Noir, ‘Becker & Kempe’ (a working title) is set mainly in Gothenburg, Sweden’s largest port city, and enlists police detectives Milla Becer and Simon Kempe in their fight against international crime and corruption. The screenplays were written by Morgan Jensen and Theo Gabay, authors of four best-selling novels, while Jensen’s screenwriting credits include SVT-Arte’s “Thicker than Water” and five episodes of the propulsive ZFG-TV4 spy actioner “Agent Hamilton.”

The project is being developed together with a streamer: Dramanation is now looking for an additional local partner, says Nebout Variety.

Billed by Nebout as a “creative cousin” to Apple TV+’s film “Tetris,” “Made in Sweden” is also being cast by Nebout as a political thriller/Cold War drama in the vein of “Whiskey on the Rocks,” reuniting much of that series’ creative talent: screenwriter Jansson-Schweizer and director Björn Stein (“Midnight Sun”).

‘Made in Sweden’ retells an extraordinary but true story of how the Swedish government directs the sale of 1,000 Volvo 144 sedans to North Korea, while viewing North Korea as a lucrative emerging market.

In “Made in Sweden,” the deal is led by an idealistic official from the Swedish Ministry of Commerce, convinced that trade could counter the Cold War and that Sweden’s position as a neutral power between the U.S. and the Soviet Union could further this goal. Still, North Korea remains reluctant to pay up, and “Made in Sweden” takes on the tone of a spy thriller about car robberies as the KGB and CIA intervene and wonder what’s really behind the deal.

Nebout and Jansson-Schweizer also created ‘To Catch a Murderer’, co-developed and produced with Germany’s Odeon Fiction as lead studio and written by British writers Dan Gaster, Will Ing and Paul Powell (AMC-AcornTV’s ‘Art Detective’).

One of the duo’s careers was their international ambition. At Nice Drama they created and produced ‘Midnight Sun’ (2016), the high-end and high-end murder mystery thriller starring Leila Bekhti (‘A Prophet’) as a French police officer sent to investigate a murder in Sweden’s Arctic Circle. Backed by Canal+ and SVT, it was billed as the first co-production between France and Sweden.

Produced by Nebout and Jansson-Schweizer, with multiple other partners, “The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared,” Sweden’s biggest domestic hit with a $22.9 million gross also broke out in Germany ($11.5 million) on its way to a $51.2 million global dragnet.

Another touchstone is their belief in premium entertainment. This remains despite – and thanks to – a decline in orders for Scandinavian scripted series, from 129 in 2022 to 57 in 2025, according to Ampere Analysis.

“We’ve gone from a market, especially when it comes to the streamers, where five years ago it was really all about premium drama. Streaming services didn’t have a lot of reality TV or light entertainment or any formats, nor sports,” said Guy Bisson, who will give a state of the market analysis, From Rubble to Reinvention: Reengineering Entertainment, at the TV Drama Vision in Gothenburg on January 27.

“However, we are talking about market trends. Nothing is black and white. There is still space and market demand for premium drama,” Bisson added.

As he prepared to buy Dramanation’s new projects from TV Drama Vision, Nebout spoke about this, its broader approach to local events, blended financing models and a winning combination of top creative talent and IP.

Your two new series reflect the belief that there is still a demand for premium drama…..

Our approach is essentially to ignore the surrounding state of panic and maintain the philosophy we have followed for more than 15 years: focusing on distinctive scripted entertainment with an authentic voice, regardless of format or budget, or distribution platform or media. We believe audiences are still looking for event drama; the record-breaking ratings for our recent Disney+/SVT miniseries, “Whiskey on the Rocks,” certainly support this. The niche and market for premium and immersive scripted entertainment certainly hasn’t disappeared. With all due respect to the vertical microdrama frenzy, we firmly stick to horizontal, splashy drama.

“Becker & Kempe” will, in my opinion, investigate international crime and its links with other countries such as Spitsbergen and Spain, among others. ‘Whiskey on the Rocks’ and ‘Made in Sweden’ depict Sweden in the midst of confronting the Cold War. While your series are set in the Swedish landscape, such as the memorable Arctic vistas of ‘Midnight Sun’, they almost always have an international dimension. Can you comment?

The ‘broader picture’ is probably the common thread in most of the concepts and stories we engage with, develop and bring to the screens. Regardless of the genre. We look for the ripple on the water – how a local event or action can have larger consequences. It’s the butterfly effect. Globalization began in the 19th century and today we are inescapably connected. Crime knows no borders, and geopolitics or ideologies now affect every individual on the planet. Whether the story is set in the Swedish Arctic or on the streets of Paris, that tension between the isolated location and the global stage is what we explore. It’s the ultimate fuel for compelling storytelling and high-stakes escapism.

“Becker & Kempe” is a crime actioner, which you have made before, as in the case of “Agent Hamilton.” It comes at a time when action movies and series, or titles with a strong action edge, are responsible for a large percentage of big hits on platforms. Again, can you comment?

Action, thriller and adventure are evergreen genres because they fulfill the critical promise of escapism, especially in difficult times. And by escapism I don’t mean necessarily light-hearted entertainment. For me, the beauty and true power of the action side lies in its versatility. When you add it as an ingredient to complex or dark stories and genres like crime or espionage, it adds a high-octane layer that makes the stakes even higher. So it’s no coincidence that action, in its many iterations and forms, currently dominates the global top 10. It offers a universal language.

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

Although not a sequel, ‘Made in Sweden’ is a thematic cousin of ‘Whiskey on the Rocks’, and we aim to reunite the same creative team. Once again we inhabit the Cold War universe, inspired by an infamous true story, but viewed through a different lens. Our vision remains satirical, but we also lean toward a heist-driven dramatic thriller. Another thematic cousin would be Apple’s “Tetris” – high stakes and fast-paced, mixing suspense with humor. We explore that rigid historical era through a genre-bending story and compelling characters.

You say that you are developing “Becker & Kempe” together with a streaming service, but that you are looking for an additional local partner. Do you see this blended financing model as a way forward for higher-end series?

The new normal is that there are no longer fixed models; the market evolves daily, and today’s setup may be outdated tomorrow. However, for specific high-end series, partnerships between international streamers and local broadcasters offer a great path forward. We were kind of a pioneer in this field in the Nordic countries with ‘Whiskey on the Rocks’, a co-production between SVT and Disney+. When designed well, these “window” collaborations are a win-win: they facilitate higher production values ​​and shared risk for ambitious projects. Last but not least, this model also allows producers to retain their intellectual property – which is a fundamental shift from the “fully streamer-funded and owned” model.

Two other hallmarks of your series are the combination of top creative talent, with hits under their belt as a novelist or director, and IP, whether that be a historical event or a bestseller. Again, can you comment?

This is a conscious strategy and positioning on our part. As a boutique focused on scalable, distinctive tentpole drama, pairing top talent with powerful and unique IP provides the critical edge to cut through the noise of a saturated market and provide partners and viewers with the reassurance of premium quality.

Whiskey on the rocks

A fun, true nuclear crisis chronicle, part warm comedy and part LOL political satire ‘Whiskey on the Rocks’ won the Prix Italia 2025, organized by RAI and supported by around 100 public and private broadcasters. It also won Best TV Drama at the Swedish Crystal TV Awards and Best Scandinavian Series at the Aarhus Series Awards in Denmark, and was also nominated for a Rose d’Or.

On Swedish pubcaster SVT, the show reached record highs, with the first episode, which aired on Christmas Day 2024, achieving a linear viewing figure of around 1.2 million viewers. With catch-up and non-linear viewing on SVT Play, the series’ total reach averaged around 1.8 million viewers per episode, almost 1 in 6 Swedes watched the series. The completion rate was 93%.

Disney+’s first Nordic Original series to premiere in select countries, plus Hulu in the US, ‘Whiskey on the Rocks’ begins in 1981 with the crew of a Soviet U-137 ‘Whiskey’ class submarine changing course on its way home. But it is too drunk to set the new coordinates correctly. The submarine is located on rocks within sight of the Swedish coast, deep in territorial waters and close to the largest naval base. It could very well have nuclear warheads on board.

The series’ sympathies lie with the ordinary people on land in Sweden and in the Russian submarine, plus Sweden’s apparently floundering Prime Minister, who turns out to be a source of common sense, rather than with the short-sighted military leaders in the US, Sweden and Russia, who only long for military action.

“Whiskey and the Rocks” also features memorable scenes, such as a phone conversation between Ronald Reagan and the dementia-stricken Leonard Brezhnev, saved by the wise diplomacy of their translators who avoid a nuclear fire. “Leonard, you son of a motherless goat, it is Ronald here,” Reagan greets Breshnev in a funny manner, translated as “It is a great honor for me to steal a moment of your precious time.” “You should hang yourself,” Brezhnev replies, rendered as “Greetings, honored President. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“We have three reconnaissance planes over that damn submarine and we need to know if it has nuclear missiles,” Reagan barks when Brezhnev’s translator says the crisis is just between Russia and Sweden. But Brezhnev has fallen asleep by then.