Mipcom: Hulu Takes 'Das Boot' for U.S.

Bavaria Fiction, Sky Deutschland and Sonar Entertainment produced the sequel series to Wolfgang Petersen's 1981 submarine classic, starring Vicky Krieps and Tom Wlaschiha.

Hulu has picked up U.S. rights to Das Boot, the series sequel to Wolfgang Petersen's Oscar-nominated anti-war classic from 1981.

The new Das Boot, an eight-hour miniseries set in the period just following Petersen's film, has presold to more than 100 territories ahead of its debut.

In addition to Hulu, Starzplay has nabbed the mini for France and Latin America, while AMC has picked up rights for Spain and Portugal. SBS took Australia and MNET nabbed rights in South Africa, among other deals.

Sky Deutschland, which produced Das Boot with Bavaria Fiction and Sonar Entertainment, will premiere the series across German-speaking Europe on Nov. 23. It will go out simultaneously on Sky in the U.K. and Ireland. Sky Italia will air the series later in the year.

Budgeted at just over $30 million, Das Boot features stars Vicky Krieps (The Phantom Thread), Tom Wlaschiha (Game of Thrones), August Wittgenstein (The Crown) and Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex), alongside up-and-coming talents including Rick Okan, Pit Bukowski, Philip Birnstiel and Julius Feldmeier. Andreas Prochaska (The Dark Valley) directed.

The story, from co-writers Tony Saint and Johannes W. Betz, starts in the fall of 1942, after the Allies have cracked the German military's Enigma code and can track the movement of their submarine fleets. Serving on a German U-boot becomes little more than a suicide mission. The new series follows the crew of an ill-fated submarine that launches on its inaugural mission from Nazi-occupied France, as well as the stories of the family and friends they leave behind and that of French resistance fighters taking on the Nazi regime from the inside.

Das Boot was produced by Oliver Vogel and Jan S. Kaiser for Bavaria Fiction; Marcus Ammon and Frank Jastfelder for Sky Deutschland; and Jenna Santoianni for Sonar Entertainment.