Originally written in Danish, the novels have been translated into numerous languages, including English, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese.

[9] Frank first acquired the US television rights for the novels in 2014 and initially planned to set the series in Boston, Massachusetts instead of Denmark.

[11] Filming began in Edinburgh in February 2024, with Matthew Goode in the lead role of Carl Morck, Alexej Manvelov [sv; de; fr; nl; zh] as Akram Salim (renamed from Hafez el-Assad), Leah Byrne as Rose, Chloe Pirrie as Merrit Lingard (renamed from Merete Lynggaard) and Kelly Macdonald as Dr. Rachel Irving.

[14] The films have been massively successful, selling over three million tickets in Denmark alone, where the installments regularly top the yearly box-office.

[15] The fifth film The Marco Effect [da; ca; cy; de; fr; sv] however, which marked a complete recast, was significantly less successful despite a larger budget.