Amazon Prime Video may be late to the international slate party, but boy, talk about arriving in style! Taking a cue from Netflix’s game plan of commissioning local content in every corner of the world, Amazon Prime Video has commissioned an eye-popping slate of new content in Germany, from local German content creators.
Dedicated viewers of digital content must know that Netflix is the leader in commissioning local content from almost every market it has a presence in, including Australia and New Zealand, countries in the Middle East, Europea, Asia, South America and Africa, and so on. Not only that, Netflix’s strategy has paid rich dividends, with its international content becoming a hit with Netflix subscribers. ‘Dark‘ and ‘How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast)’ are two of its German Netflix originals that have hit pay dirt, and spectacularly so.
Now Amazon Prime Video wants a slice of the German content pie. It has commissioned a terrific slate of German shows, including a crime thriller, a sport documentary, and more. The news was first broken by media publication, ‘Deadline’.
The first of the German originals Amazon Prime Video announced this afternoon is an adaptation of German best-selling author Wolfgang Hohlbein’s cult novel ‘The Gryphon’. The fantasy thriller series will be produced by W&B Television, the same team that produced Netflix’s hit ‘Dark’, along with DogHaus Films. The 6-episode series will be written by Erol Yesilkaya, and directed by Sebastian Marka, both of whom will also be the showrunners of The Gryphon.
Next is the edgy crime drama ‘Luden’, again a 6-episode series that focuses on the red light district of 1970s and the pimps who controlled it. The series chronicles the rise of the pimp Sonny Boy Klaus Barkowsky, the leader of the Nutella gang, an 80-strong cartel of pimps based in the St. Pauli red light district of Hamburg. Luden will be produced by Neuesuper, and written by Niklas Hoffmann, Peter Kocyla, Vivien Hoppe, and Rafael Parente.
Amazon Prime Video has also commissioned an intriguing sports documentary series which will capture the behind-the-scenes goings on of popular German football club FC Bayern Munich, much like Amazon Prime Video’s earlier ‘The Test’, which did the same with the Australian National Cricket Team. The series will cover the period from the club’s victory in the 2020 Champions League final, to the end of the 2020/21 season. The series is again a collaboration with W&B Television.
Next is a true-crime series, ‘Gefesselt’. The series traces the search for one of Hamburg’s most notorious and dreaded serial killers, called the “acid barrel killer”, who killed scores of people between 1986 and 1992. The 6-episode series will recount how the dreaded killer was finally caught due to the courage shown by an ordinary woman. The series will be produced by Neue Bioskop and directed by Florian Schwarz.
Lastly, Amazon Prime Video has signed a first-look deal with bestselling author Sebastian Fitzek, which gives it exclusive rights to several of his best-selling novels. Interestingly, Fitzek’s debut novel ‘Therapy’ sold more copies than Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code in Germany.
The list of German originals commissioned by Amazon Prime Video certainly looks interesting. Amazon Prime Video subscribers are in for a treat in the coming days as the streamer looks to ramp up its international originals slate in line with Netflix’s tried, tested and proven content strategy.
We’re hiring!
We are hiring two full-time junior to mid-level writers with the option to work remotely. You need to work a 5-hour shift and be available to write. Interested candidates should email their sample articles to [email protected]. Applications without a sample article will not be considered.
