Netflix Boards ‘Freud,’ Austrian Thriller with Young Sigmund Freud Tracking a Killer
By Stewart Clarke
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Netflix has boarded “Freud,” the upcoming German-language thriller following a young Sigmund Freud as he teams with a medium and a police inspector to track a serial killer in 19th century Vienna.
will launch “Freud” internationally. It will be its first original drama out of Austria. The streamer is enjoying success with its German scripted series “Dark,” setting an overall deal with its creators and greenlighting a second season. Austria-Germany co-production “Freud” will bow on Austrian pubcaster ORF locally, and Netflix will take it into the U.S., U.K., Germany and other international markets.
Freud studied in Vienna and is considered the founder of psychoanalysis. In the “Freud” series he is on the trail of a killer, alongside medium Fleur Salomé, and a surly war veteran and police inspector, Kiss.
Marvin Kren is attached to direct, off the back of working on TNT Serie’s hit original drama “4 Blocks.” Kren, Stefan Brunner (“Tatort”) and Benjamin Hessler (“4 Blocks”) are writing the series.
Netflix will launch the eight-part show as an original across its footprint, with the exceptions of Austria, Belgium, Finland, and Hungary. ZDF Enterprises is the international distributor of the drama. Production starts this fall. Viggo Mortensen played Freud in 2011 movie “ A Dangerous Method ,” but the series has yet to set its cast.
“Freud” hails from Austria’s Vienna-based Satel Film and ZDFE and Bavaria Film-owned Bavaria Fiction , which is headquartered in Munich. The latter is also making the new “Das Boot” series for Sky, and comedy “Germanized” for Amazon and Deutsche Telekom.
The Vienna Film Fund and Europe’s Media program are also backing “Freud.” The buzz has been building around the series. It was one of a handful of projects pitched at the Berlin Drama Series Days in 2017. Heinrich Ambrosch (“A Fortunate Man”) will exec produce the series for Satel Film and Moritz Polter for .
