Guillermo del Toro nailed it when he told Roar Uthaug during a recent conversation that his “Troll” movie showcased a playful blend of Norwegian sensibility and American flair.
Uthaug, whose anticipated Norwegian monster sequel “Troll 2” drops Monday on Netflix, grew up watching the same 1990s sci-fi and disaster movies that shaped a generation of Hollywood filmmakers.
“I got the idea for a troll movie like this back in the ’90s,” he tells Variety in an interview alongside Jenny Stjernströmer Björk, VP of Nordic content at Netflix. “That was after watching ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Jurassic Park.’ I was thinking, ‘How could we do this in Norway? What would that be about?’”
He then stumbled on a century-old drawing by Norwegian artist Theodor Kittelsen portraying a troll striding down Oslo’s main street, and the idea for his action-adventure movie crystallized. “I thought, What would happen if a troll, for real, was walking through the center of Oslo today? How would the government and the army react? And that was the first inspiration for the movie,” he says, a few hours before unveiling ‘Troll 2’ at a lavish red-carpet bash hosted by Netflix in Oslo.
Considered the most ambitious Norwegian movie in recent history (if not all time), “Troll” made a splash on the streamer when it bowed in December 2022. With 103 million views in the first three months alone, it became the most streamed non-English language movie of all time on Netflix, and ranked in the top 10 across 93 countries. It even topped the charts in Norway, the U.S., and the U.K..
“Troll 2” brings back kickass palaeontologist-turned-adventurer Professor Nora Tidemann (Ine Marie Wilmann) who witnessed the emergence of an enormous troll in the 2022 movie. Tidermann is recruited once again to join forces with Andreas Isaksen (Kim Falck) and Kristoffer Holm (Mads Pettersen) to stop a dangerous new troll (nicknamed Megatroll) that has awakened and unleashed destruction across Norway. The supersized sequel also introduces new faces, such as government official Marion Auryn Rhadani (Sara Khorami) and historian Esther Johanne Tiller (Anne Krigsvoll).
Stjernströmer Björk says she knew immediately that the project had this global appeal. “It was something we had never heard before,” she says, remembering the moment Uthaug and his producers at Motion Blur pitched it. “What struck me was the combination of those big grand scenes with so much humor, warmth and emotions. It’s also very deeply rooted in Norway. The mix of all these ingredients was exactly what we’re looking for,” she explains.
Ultimately, “Troll” drew a huge fanbase, Uthaug says, because “it’s set in a genre that people understand, like the monster genre, but the exoticness of the local Norwegian folklore, the troll and the nature make it unique.”
Roar Uthaug, director of “Troll 2”
Courtesy of Netflix
Larry Tanz, Netflix’s head of EMEA, points out the first “Troll” movie “was number one of our most popular non-English language films on Netflix.” And crucially, he adds, “It’s super Norwegian.”
“It really came from such an authentic place, from a storyteller’s perspective rather than us having a desire to make a creature film,” Tanz told Variety right before the International Emmy Awards ceremony. “It was Roar saying, ‘I want to tell this story about this thing that’s super connected to our culture here.’”
Uthaug – who credits Steven Spielberg for being a “big inspiration” for his talent in bridging entertainment and movie magic, always with a big heart” — was also eager to keep the authenticity in the aesthetic and visual style of “Troll 2,” as much as in the storytelling. “I think we have one day on a green screen on this movie,” he says of his sequel. “The rest was shot on real locations with the actors, on the snow, in the wind, so that it felt as real as possible and as grounded in Norway and in Norwegian landscape as possible.”
The trolls themselves are created with visual effects, so Uthaug had the actors interact with a drone hovering 30 meters above them to guide them. He also used extensive previs and concept art to help the cast understand the emotional stakes of each scene.
Uthaug also envisioned the “Troll” films as character-driven. “It’s really important that you care about the characters,” he says. “Those that you feel empathy with are the ones that make you invest in the movie.”
The one thing that doesn’t look local in “Troll 2” is the scale of the budget and production values. While Netflix hasn’t revealed the budget, Stjernströmer Björk and Tanz suggest it wasn’t cheap to make.
“We really made sure that we had the right budget to make ‘Troll 2;’ with the first film being such a big success, we wanted to give members something even more extraordinary this time — so we have the two trolls!” she says.
Tanz says “Troll 2” is great example of Netflix seeking local stories and giving them enough scale to become worldwide successes.
“We’re bringing the support for our filmmakers at a level they might not normally experience for something like that,” says Tanz. “Roar is a world-class filmmaker and we’re able to provide him with the resources to tell the story in its best form.”
Internationally, the streamer has also pushed its dubbing strategy. “We’re dubbing in like 36 languages now,” Tanz says, citing a family anecdote illustrating how dubbing has made it possible for “audience members to watch something and feel it was made for them.”
“When my mother-in-law told me, ‘I watched “Lupin,’” I said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s our show from France.’ She said, ‘No, it’s not. It’s in English,’” he says.
Unsurprisingly, Uthaug has sparked some Hollywood interest since he made “Troll” but isn’t in a hurry to make his way across the Atlantic. “I get some scripts now and then,” says the filmmaker, “but being able to make a Norwegian language movie on this scale here in Norway has just been fantastic. That’s really the high point of my career.”
While he’s keeping his options open for what’s next, he’s not fully ready to leave the “Troll” franchise behind. “We’ve talked about this and the word ‘trollogy’ does sound really good,” he says with a smile.
Tanz is hopeful about the “trollogy” prospects. “That would be a great outcome,” he says. “And success begets more success.”
