Netflix to Produce First German Series With 'Lives of Others' Producers (Report)

Baran bo Odar, director of cyber thriller 'Who Am I' is reportedly set to direct Netflix's first German-language series.

Netflix is turning to the Oscar-winning team of Max Wiedemann and Quirin Berg (The Lives of Others) to produce its first German-language series, according to German media reports.

Neither Netflix nor Wiedemann and Berg have commented on the reports, but it is widely known that the streaming giant is close to greenlighting a German series and an announcement is expected in the coming days.

According to a report in German trade publication Mediabiz, German filmmaker Baran bo Odar will direct Netflix's entry in German-language drama, of which no details are known.

Bo Odar scored a local hit with Who Am I? (2014), a cyber thriller about Berlin hackers, which Wiedemann and Berg produced. The feature, which starred Tom Schilling, Elyas M'Barek and Hannah Herzsprung, earned more than $6 million at the local box office.

The series would be the first original German-language production from Netflix, which only entered the German market in 2014. But Netflix is moving fast to boost its international operations with high-profile original dramas.

Netflix chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, told the UBS Media Conference in New York in December that the group would double the number of original drama series it producers to 31 by next year.

Netflix already has several foreign-language series in production or in the pipeline, including British royalty drama The Crown, French political thriller Marseilles and Suburra, which focuses on the Italian mafia.

But in Germany, Netflix got beat to the local content punch by Amazon, which recently announced it had greenlit its first German-language series: a drama called Wanted from Matthias Schweighofer, one of Germany's biggest movie stars.