Apple TV+ has greenlit a long-awaited TV adaptation of the late Philip Kerr’s popular Berlin Noir books from Oscar-winning Conclave writer Peter Straughan, Doctor Who producer Bad Wolf, and Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman’s Playtone.
The untitled drama is based on Kerr’s final book Metropolis, which told the iconic detective’s origin story. Set in 1928, Metropolis follows newly promoted police officer Gunther in the intimidating elite Berlin Murder Squad, investigating what seems to be a serial killer targeting victims on the fringes of society.
Gunther’s Berlin is described as a “city of unprecedented freedom and dizzying turbulence, the Nazis a distant nightmare waiting in the wings.”
Deadline reports that Apple is kicking off with Gunther’s origin story but there is scope to adapt more Berlin Noir books via the studio’s option. Gunther was made famous by Kerr’s Berlin Noir trilogy comprising March Violets, The Pale Criminal and A German Requiem, all of which were published around the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Kerr penned a further 11 Gunther books, which sold in droves worldwide, finishing with Metropolis before he died in 2018. Metropolis was published posthumously a year later.
To say a Berlin Noir TV project has been in the works for a while is an understatement. As long ago as 2012, HBO and Playtone partners Hanks and Goetzman were in early talks to acquire the novels.
Now, fans of the books can finally see the stories come to life. Hopefully the adaptations live up to the expectations.
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