Cable network HBO is developing a series based on Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters with Zodiak Media-owned producer Yellow Bird Entertainment.

The Time Warner-backed broadcaster is working with Scandi producer Yellow Bird, which made The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films and Wallander, and Mad Men producer Lionsgate, on the adaptation.

Headhunters is based on Nesbø’s novel, which centres on a corporate headhunter who leads a double life as an art theif. It was turned into a film in 2011.

True Blood exec producer Alexander Woo is adapting the book for TV and is working with former HBO exec and Game of Thrones producer Carolyn Strauss, who will exec produce along with Yellow Bird’s Berna Levin and Marianne Gray.

It’s not clear whether Zodiak Rights, the international sales arm of the UK producer, or Nashville distributor Lionsgate will sell the show globally.

Headhunters is the latest Scandinavian project to be adapted in the US. Yellow Bird is working with Chernin Entertainment to develop crime series The Swede for 20th Century Fox Television and Peter Chernin’s indie also acquired the US rights to Norwegian political thriller Mammon.

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