The first day of the working week looks set to take something of a kicking in the cinema of the near future. We learned not long ago that producer Daniel Grodnik was heading for a Bad Monday, and now here comes Whatever Happened To Monday?**, the English-language debut of Norwegian director Morten Tyldum.
Tyldum broke box office records in his homeland this year, with his adaptation of the Jo Nesbo crime thriller Headhunters. It's Norway's most successful film of all time - before it's even played internationally - so it's no surprise that Hollywood should have picked up the phone.
Whatever Happened To Monday? is a high-concept dystopian yarn about septuplet brothers on the run and trying to stay below the radar, in an overpopulated society where having more than one child is illegal. You'd think there might be some sort of legal clause which would make exception for acts of nature like multiple conceptions in a single pregnancy, but we're guessing the government in question likes to rigidly enforce its draconian laws. Zero tolerance! No excuses!
We're also going to infer that the brothers are named after the days of the week. Hence, something bad happens to Monday, starting the plot engine. According to the Mother Goose rhyme, it'll be Wednesday that's most upset about this.
The screenplay, deemed hot enough to make the Black List, is by Max Botkin, who previously wrote the Pauly Shore vehicle Opposite Day, and the RoboSapien movie that's currently in post-production. Raffaella De Laurentiis is producing, through her Raffaella Productions.
Headhunters gets a UK release next April.