Tomas Alfredson’s The Snowman is based on what many call Norwegian author Jo Nesbo’s masterpiece. So why is the film being almost universally panned by critics before its wide release? (Read our, uh, not-so-positive review here.) After the first wave of reviews came through from critics in the U.K. who saw it early, Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Let the Right One In) himself has chosen to weigh in on why his movie didn’t work out as well as it should have.

While speaking to Norway’s NRK (via The Independent), Alfredson explained that once they got the word that they had funding for the movie, everything became very rushed and they ended up missing a big chunk of the script.

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. It happened very abruptly - suddenly we got notice that we had the money and could start the shoot in London.

The Snowman was supposed to be a Martin Scorsese project and had been floating around Hollywood since around 2015, but eventually Scorsese stepped out of the director’s chair and became a producer, and when Alfredson started production everything moved way too quickly. I haven’t read the book, but I would be interested to see if and how much of the story had to be changed because of this problem.

One thing Alfredson won’t allow criticism of, however, is the film’s inaccurate geography.

It’s not a documentary about the geography of Norway. I wanted to make a fictive thriller. So even if not everything is geographically correct, I don’t give a s–t.

If you’re still interested in seeing it, The Snowman hits theaters October 20.

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