‘Babylon Berlin’s’ Third Season to Look at Movie Industry’s Dark Side
By Henry Chu
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Picking up where the previous run left off, the new season of lavish German series “Babylon Berlin” will be set in the 1930s and will look at the seamy side of the movie industry, centering on the murder of a big star at a time when “the talkies” were beginning to take off, producers of the show said Tuesday.
Shooting is scheduled to begin in the fall in Berlin and at other locations. Season 3 of the hit noir series – whose renewal Variety reported exclusively in May – will consist of 10 new episodes and be based on the second novel by Volker Kutscher featuring detective Gereon Rath, titled “Silent Death.”
The series will be written by the directing-writing trio of Tom Tykwer, Henk Handloegten and Achim von Borries. Once again, the production partners on the show are X Filme Creative Pool, ARD Degeto, Sky and Beta Film.
The first two seasons of “,” which were shot concurrently and cost €40 million (about $47 million at current exchange rates), making it Continental Europe’s most expensive show ever, were a hit for German public broadcaster ARD and European pay-TV giant Sky. The series is available in the U.S. on Netflix.
The third season, set in the early 1930s, sees Rath investigating the movie industry just as the talkies start to eclipse silent films, “leaving many by the wayside: producers, cinema owners – and, of course, silent film stars,” the producers said. Actor Volker Bruch returns as Rath and Liv Lisa Fries as Charlotte Ritter.
“From the beginning, as initiators of ‘Babylon Berlin,’ we wanted to break new ground for high-quality productions from Germany for an international market and audience,” said producer Stefan Arndt of X-Filme. “The response from around the world shows that, together with our entire creative team and all partners, we have succeeded.”
Jan Mojto, the CEO of , said that the show had become “a trademark abroad for the high quality of German television. It is an example for more and more productions from Europe reaching international standards.”
