'The Dark Valley' Director to Helm 'Das Boot' Sequel

Austrian filmmaker Andreas Prochaska will begin production on the eight-part TV series, set after the events of the 1981 anti-war classic, in March.

Andreas Prochaska, the director of Bavarian Western The Dark Valley, is taking the helm of new TV series Das Boot, a sequel to the groundbreaking anti-war drama from 1981.

Austria-born Prochaska is a rising star on the German scene. His TV movie A Day for a Miracle won the International Emmy in 2013, and The Dark Valley, a Western set in the Alps starring Sam Riley, was the big winner of the 2014 German film awards, taking eight trophies.

The Das Boot sequel is set after the events of Wolfgang Petersen's film (and miniseries) about a German U-Boot crew in World War II. The original was based on Lothar Gunther Buchheim's 1973 novel of the same name. The film version of Das Boot was nominated for six Oscars and was an international box office hit.

“Das Boot is a milestone in the history of the anti-war film, it stands for authenticity, suspense, drama, emotion and action,” said Prochaska “The series goes a step further, combining the claustrophobic atmosphere of the submarine with a plotline set within the orbit of the (anti-Nazi) resistance, introducing strong female figures and gives me, as the director, the opportunity to transfer this inheritance to a modern form of storytelling.”

Das Boot will be shot as a eight-part TV series, with production on the $26 million (€25 million) series set to begin in March this year for delivery in 2018. Sky will have exclusive rights to the series in Germany, Austria, the U.K. and Ireland.

Pay TV group Sky Deutschland is producing Das Boot together with Bavaria Fernsehproduktion in Germany and Sonar Entertainment (Taboo, The Shannara Chronicles).

Tony Saint (Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley) and German writer Johannes W. Betz (The Tunnel) are head writers on the Das Boot series. Bavaria's Moritz Polter and Oliver Vogel are executive producing together with Marcus Ammon and Frank Jastfelder of Sky and Sonar's Jenna Santoianni.