Mio, min Mio (Swedish)

"As early as 1984, there were reports of a Swedish-Soviet collaboration project for a film adaptation of Astrid Lindgren's beloved 1954 novel about the lonely boy Bo Vilhelm Olsson who meets a genie in a bottle who takes him to the Land in the Far Away, where his real father is waiting and tells him that his real name is Prince Mio.It was not Astrid Lindgren who wrote the script, but the English dramaturg William Aldridge who was employed by Nordisk Tonefilm. The company planned an international large-scale production. The other interested parties were then SF and Gorkijfilm, but SF dropped out before the start of filming. Sovinfilm, Norway Film Development and the Swedish Film Institute became new part-financiers.The budget was initially estimated at SEK 30-40 million, but the bill ended up being around SEK 55 million, which without competition made it the most expensive film investment in Swedish film history to date. According to Nordisk Tonefilm, the costs were due to the expensive special effects (approx. SEK 15 million), but the filming's move between Stockholm, Moscow, Crimea, London and Scotland probably also pushed the budget up considerably.Right from the beginning, it was decided that the director would be from the Soviet Union, and at the end of 1984, Vladimir Grammatikov was chosen, who was responsible for several successful children's films in his home country. However, the film was to be in English, as it was believed that this would facilitate the international marketing. Consequently, several internationally known names were brought to the cast, and after auditions in London in January 1986, the British child actors Nicholas Pickard and Christian Bale (who later became a big name in Hollywood) were chosen to play Bosse/Mio and Benke/Jum-Jum respectively.The first public showing took place at the film festival in Moscow in July 1987. In Sweden, the film was shown dubbed into Swedish.The film music piece "Mio, min Mio" was written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and performed by Gemini."