ABBA star Benny Andersson to adapt teen witch novel The Circle

The young adult fantasy book is the first of the Engelsfors trilogy, written by Sara Bergmark Elfgren and Mats Strandberg, which has sold to 21 countries and was published in the UK last summer.

It was originally acquired by Sweden’s Filmlance. But, according to Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, the authors lost faith in the project and withdrew from the production, which was subsequently shelved.

Ludvig Andersson then read the book and suggested a big screen adaptation to his musician father.

Benny Andersson, who participated in the production of hit 2008 film Mamma Mia!, has set up RMV Film – to be run by Swedish producer Cecilia Norman Mardell – and negotiated the purchase of Engelsfors rights from Filmlance.

Director Levan Akin, who has been involved in the production from the start, will remain on board to helm the production which is set to shoot early 2014.

Ludvig said: “We are not interested in just standing there with the money – we will be actively involved in the work, and I think we have experiences that could be useful.”

So far The Circle is the only production on RMV Film’s line-up.

The novel follows six teenage girls – all first-year students at the same secondary school with little in common - who discover they are witches and have been chosen to save the world from an alien evil.

Akin is co-writing the script with Bergmark Elfgren.

Benny Andersson had a string of hits with Swedish pop group ABBA from 1972-83 and went on to write musicals including Chess, Kristina and Mamma Mia!.