Although it’s been two years since The Weinstein Co. picked up the Swedish thriller, Snabba Cash, the movie finally has a release date of July 27th. Directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House), the film (being released as Easy Money) is based on a novel by Swedish author Jens Lapidus and follows a taxi driver (Joel Kinnaman) in Stockholm who gets caught up in a drug-running operation. The novel itself was at the heart of the film’s release delay because the English translation is only just arriving on American shores this April. Pointing to the success of the Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) books and banking on the box-office magic of Espinosa’s Safe House, Harvey Weinstein hopes the wait will be worth it. Hit the jump to see what he had to say.The LA Times snabba-cash-posterreported on Snabba Cash/Easy Money’s new release date. The film had previously gone to the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, but then disappeared without further progress. In regards to the delay, Weinstein had this to say:

“We love the movie, but we needed the book to be out here. We were getting mixed messages on the publishing.”

It doesn’t hurt that Safe House is currently experiencing a successful box office run and Weinstein will be able to use that fact in marketing Easy Money:

“Audiences that see Safe House don’t necessarily go to  see a Scandinavian-subtitled movie. But we still feel the movie could do well for a foreign-language picture. It could make four or five million dollars.”

If successful, there’s the possibility of Easy Money turning into a trilogy, something alluded to by AMC’s The Killing star, Kinnaman in a previous interview with Steve. Look for Easy Money on July 27th.