Matthias Schweighofer - H 2016
Getty ImagesAmazon has signed up Matthias Schweighofer, one of Germany’s biggest movie stars, to star in the online video giant’s first German-language series.
Multi-hyphenate Schweighofer will direct, star in and produce the series Wanted for Amazon through his Pantaleon production shingle. Warner Bros. Entertainment and Warner Bros. International Television Production Deutschland will co-produce.
Schweighofer is best-known in Germany for his hit romantic comedies, including The Nanny and Vaterfreunden, which were released through Warner Bros. locally. Wanted will mark a change of pace for Schweighofer. The plot has him as a project manager at a Berlin convention center who becomes the target of a mysterious hacking attack and finds himself and his family in danger.
Amazon Prime will premiere the series in Germany and Austria in 2017.
The deal highlights Amazon’s international push and its increasing focus on localized content in a bid to pull in subscribers. Netflix is also believed to be planning an original German-language show to bolster its presence in the market here.
