The Snowman Director Criticizes ‘Too Short’ Filming Schedule

The Snowman director Tomas Alfredson is blaming the movie’s cold reception on the short filming schedule. The Snowman was highly anticipated earlier this year, with a cast that includes Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Val Kilmer and J.K. Simmons, and it comes from the director of acclaimed thrillers like Let The Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The trailer for the film also made it look like a nail-biting thriller, but the movie thus far has attracted negative reviews; with critics appearing baffled as to how a movie with such a line-up of talent produced something so underwhelming.

Related: Watch The Snowman Trailer

In a conversation with The Norwegian Broadcast Corporation, Alfredson has opened up about how The Snowman has been received. According to the filmmaker, the short filming schedule meant that around 10-15% of the script wasn’t shot during principal photography. This led to huge narrative problems when editing began:

“Our shoot time in Norway was way too short, we didn’t get the whole story with us and when we started cutting we discovered that a lot was missing. It’s like when you’re making a big jigsaw puzzle and a few pieces are missing so you don’t see the whole picture.”

This would certainly account for some of the issues critics have had, with many stating the story doesn’t gel together. Alfredson also had a lack of time to prep the movie properly, stating “It happened very abruptly, suddenly we got notice that we had the money and could start the shoot in London.” It’s a real shame the film didn’t come together, as it’s based on an acclaimed novel by author Jo Nesbo. The Snowman comes from a series of books by Nesbo following grizzled detective Harry Hole. It was hoped the film would launch a new franchise for Fassbender, but the reviews thus far suggest that won’t come to pass.

This is the second hopeful franchise the star has been involved with in recent times, following last year’s adaptation of the video game Assassin’s Creed. While it was hoped that film would break the dreaded video game movie curse, it ultimately met with average reviews and box office, and a sequel is in doubt.

The studio is probably waiting to see how The Snowman will fare in the U.S. before talking of a follow-up – but based on the response so far, it’s not looking likely.

Source: The Norwegian Broadcast Corporation (via Yahoo! Movies)

About The Author

Padraig Cotter
(3509 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

More From Padraig Cotter