Creators of Dark reteam for HBO Max thriller based on Struwwelpeter

Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, the creators of Dark, are developing a new crime-thriller for HBO Max based on the 1845 German childrens book Struwwelpeter, Variety says. The series title has not been announced, and Lisa Vicari, who played Martha on Dark, is attached to star.

Struwwelpeter contains 10 rhyming poems of cautionary tales and moral lessons; the adaptation will depict a "cruel reality" and follow a federal investigator probing a string of murders inspired by those stories (one poem, for example, tells of a thumb-sucking child whose thumbs are cut off).

Friese and bo Odar rose to prominence with Dark, Netflixs German-language time-travel drama that became a surprise hit in 2017 and concluded in 2020 with a third season that untangled complex time loops. Their follow-up, 1899, returned to Netflix in 2022 but received middling reviews and was canceled after one season, leaving its story on a brutal cliffhanger.

Germany

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