Beck is a Swedish crime drama movie series, based on characters featured in the Martin Beck novels of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, starring Peter Haber as the titular character. The first three series and two specials were released direct-to-video, with a small number of episodes also concurrently released theatrically. To date, fifty episodes have been filmed, with all episodes from the fourth series onwards broadcast on C More.The first series was written entirely by Rolf Börjlind, while several episodes in series two and three, and the two specials, were co-written by Rolf and Cilla Börjlind. From the books, the character of Kollberg is entirely omitted from the TV series. Mikael Persbrandt announced in 2015 that he would be leaving the series to focus on other projects, although he did return to film Gunvald, the first episode of series six. In 2015, the series was acquired by the BBC as part of their international crime drama slate. The first episode to be broadcast was Buried Alive, on BBC Four.