Easy Living Goes International

The North American rights to MTV3's drama series Easy Living has been bought by Warner Bros. One of MTV3's more popular dramas, Easy Living garnered 38 percent of audience share when it was shown during prime time on Finnish television. The program of 32 hour-long episodes focuses on the character of Tapio Mikkonen, a ruthless entrepreneur who lives in luxury with his family while facing millions in debt, which his son secretly tries to help by copying his father and committing a robbery.

Production company Warner Horizon has plans to produce an English-language version of the series. "The rights sale of Easy Living is a new opportunity for the internationalization of Finnish drama," says Roope Lehtinen, executive producer of the series and managing director for Moskito Television Oy, the production company that produced the series for MTV3. "This shows that if you can make a good enough series, it doesn't matter where it comes from."

Easy Living has gotten other international attention as well - it has been picked up for distribution by U.K.-based distribution company DRG, with plans to broadcast it and even possibly do a British version. And the series success has been even further flung: Actor Carl-Cristian Rundman has received a  Seoul International Drama Award for his work in the series.