Almost 20 years after the book appeared: From today there is “The Swarm” as a series

fish acting weird; Killer whales suddenly attacking humans and lobsters puking in the face of their cooks – “The Swarm” is a powerful eco-thriller in which nature seems to mysteriously retaliate against man.

In 2004, Frank Schätzing created an international bestseller that sold more than six million copies and was translated into 27 languages. The German researched his work for five years, of which he wrote two.

Many who have read the book (“The Swarm” is over 1,000 pages) have wondered: When and how will this extraordinary novel – which would be so well suited as a visually stunning blockbuster – be made into a movie? Now the time has come: almost 20 years after the publication of the book, the protagonists can be seen from Wednesday as they try to solve the great mystery of the crazy animal world.

The eight-part series was presented to a wide audience for the first time at the Berlinale last weekend. From Wednesday 22 February, the first three episodes can be seen in the ZDF media library and on Play Suisse, SRG’s free streaming platform.

Episodes four through six will be available to stream starting March 1, and the final two episodes a week later, starting March 8.

Finally, the series will also be shown on free TV: from March 6, SRF 1 will broadcast a double episode every day at 8:05 PM.

“The Swarm” was produced by none other than one of the “Game of Thrones” producers: Frank Doelger.

In addition to Leonie Benesch (“Babylon Berlin”), Cécile de France (“The French Dispatch”), the Swede Alexander Karim and the Canadian Joshua Odjick, comedian Klaas Heufer-Umlauf and the two Swiss Rachel Braunschweig (“Tatort”, ” Neumatt” , “Divine Order”) and Claudia Jurt (“Handmaid’s Tale”) appear in the series.

“The Swarm” is an international production in which the German broadcaster ZDF took on a third of the costs. He also worked with ORF and SRF, with Italy and France, with the Scandinavian streaming service Viaplay and with Hulu Japan. There was also money from different countries. Total cost item: 44 million.

According to heise.de, next to “Babylon Berlin” and “1899”, the series is “the most expensive German TV production ever and also far ahead in European comparison”.

Yes, in the middle of Hollywood. Frank Schätzing, author of the book, explains in an interview with “Zeit”:

“When we first sold the movie rights in 2006, Uma [Thurman] very interested. Likewise Hollywood producer legend Dino De Laurentiis. Ted Tally [der einen Oscar für ‹Das Schweigen der Lämmer erhielt›]agreed to write the screenplay.” Then the bad luck started: De Laurentiis died, the funding collapsed and it was unknown for a long time what would happen to the project.

In mid-2018 it was finally announced that ZDF had decided to make a series of the book. Schätzing says: “For years nothing worked, now we have a series. Anyway.”

Pretty mixed. “Die Zeit” writes: “They discuss in the series [die Protagonisten] largely without consequence as to the right course of action.” (However, it should be mentioned here that “Die Zeit” is also not a fan of the original book.)

And the Süddeutsche Zeitung called his review: “Der Schmarrn”. The end of the world remains boring, and you have to do that first.

However, what should hurt the series the most is the fact that the author of the book had distanced himself from it. Schätzing retired from production quite early. In the interview with Die Zeit mentioned above, the author explains his displeasure: «To start with the positive: the special effects are nice, some of them really good. Look, music, sound design, everything worked out.”

However, the series fell short of its potential and was not sufficiently adapted to today’s realities: “Good cast, but little challenged. The global dimension of the threat is not noticeable, not to mention current events or an intelligent alien strategy “, says the author. Producer Doelger took over the narration: “In the end, he wanted to tell the ‘swarm’ alone, exactly according to his ideas.”

After all: the Norddeutscher Rundfunk writes that “The Swarm” is an “exciting monster film in serial form”. And from today everyone can make their own impression.

(lacquer)