Creators of Netflix's Dark have a new HBO Max thriller coming

Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar are getting back to their roots

Ask a random person what the best science fiction TV show released this century is, and they’ll probably draw a blank (or say Lost). But ask a fan of Dark, and they won’t hesitate for a second. Netflix’s moody German-language time-travel drama became a surprise hit in 2017 thanks to its dense storytelling and clever twists. The series culminated in 2020 with season 3, which miraculously managed to untangle what had become a Gordian Knot of time loops and loose threads. Now, after one false start (more on that in a minute), the team behind Dark is reuniting for a new series that has the potential to be a worthy follow-up.

Variety reports that Dark co-creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar are working on a new crime-thriller show for HBO Max based on a classic German children’s book from 1845 titled Struwwelpeter (the name of the series has not been announced). The show will also star Lisa Vicari, who played the female protagonist Martha on Dark.

While Struwwelpeter features 10 rhyming poems containing cautionary tales and moral lessons meant for children, the series will depict a “cruel reality,” according to Variety. This dramatic adaptation will focus on a federal investigator looking into a series of murders inspired by the stories within Struwwelpeter. (One poem tells the story of a thumb-sucking child whose thumbs get cut off, for example.)

While we still don’t know much about this new show, there’s reason to believe it could repeat the success of Dark after the creators’ previous attempt failed. Riding high off their initial success, Friese and bo Odar returned to Netflix in 2022 with a follow-up series titled 1899. Expectations were high, but 1899 received middling reviews, and Netflix canceled it after one season (leaving the story on a brutal cliffhanger that may never be resolved).

While the issues with 1899 were many, the most obvious were the ways it strayed from Dark’s success. Where Dark was grounded in German storytelling, 1899 attempted to be a more international story, with characters speaking various languages including German, English, and Cantonese. This new show will return to its creators' German roots, which was one of the things that gave Dark its unique flavor in a sea of forgettable sci-fi competitors. (A kids' book about kids getting their thumbs cut off is about as German as it gets.)

Dark was also a very, well, dark show. Themes of murder, sin, and culpability permeated the series. 1899 wasn’t exactly a comedy, but it was more of a sci-fi mystery than a noir-tinged thriller. This new series seems to be swinging back in the right direction when it comes to genre, as well.

We won’t know anything for sure until this new series arrives, and the current plan to sell Warner Bros. to Paramount Skydance could also easily undermine any production deals in the works for the Warner-owned streaming platform. That said, as a Dark fan, I’ll allow myself to feel excited.