Fremantle & UFA adapt Robert Harris thriller Munich

FremantleMedia has signed a deal with author Robert Harris to produce the TV adaptation of his latest novel Munich.

The international coproduction between FremantleMedia’s Euston Films and UFA Fiction will be shot in the UK and Germany.

Munich is a spy thriller set to the fateful Munich Conference of September in 1938. It deals with real-life characters such as Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini and Édouard Daladier, and the events that ultimately led to the start of World War II.

Published by Penguin Random House, the partnership for Munich marks the first deal between the Bertelsmann-owned publishers and FremantleMedia, itself part of the RTL Group, a division of Bertelsmann.

Harris said: “From my point of view, this is the perfect combination – an Anglo-German coproduction of a story set in England and Germany, telling the story of an Englishman and a German struggling against the Nazis. From the moment I heard that Euston Films and UFA wanted to make it together, I knew my novel could not be in better hands.”

Kate Harwood, managing director at Euston Films added:  “As a long-time fan of Robert Harris’s epic and dramatic novels I am so proud that we have been entrusted with the rights to this superb book.

“Munich, with its thrilling yet forensic look at four days when the world held its breath, is destined to be a future classic.

“With our partners and sister company UFA, we are planning an international co-production of scale and ambition as a dual language drama, which will shoot in the UK and Germany. A really exciting venture for us all.”