Ira Levin’s (The Stepford Wives, Rosemary’s Baby) novel The Boys From Brazil will officially be getting a TV adaptation after Netflix announced they were moving forward with the project Tuesday, Deadline reports. Headed by creator Peter Morgan (The Crown, Frost/Nixon) and produced by World Productions and Orchid Pictures, the limited series will feature Jeremy Strong (Succession, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere) as Yakov Liebermann.
Per Deadline, the series has also cast Daniel Brühl (Rush, Inglourious Basterds) as Von Harteneck, August Diehl (A Hidden Life, Inglourious Basterds) as Johann-Friedrich Meinhardt, and Gillian Anderson (The Crown, Sex Education) as Frieda Steiner. Featuring in supporting roles are Shira Haas (Unorthodox, Captain America: Brave New World) as Anna Koehler and Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex, Fleishman is in Trouble) as Hannah Liebermann.
Production is set to begin next month in the UK, Germany, Bulgaria, and Spain, Deadline reports.
Set across three decades from the immediate aftermath of World War II through the political turbulence of the 1970s, the series follows Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Yakov Liebermann in his lifelong crusade to bring Nazi fugitives to justice, a crusade that has cost him nearly everything, according to an official synopsis provided by Deadline.
The synopsis continues: When one of his young protégées, undercover in Brazil, learns of a shocking Nazi plan, Liebermann is in a race against time to expose an unimaginable truth: Meinhardt, a sadistic Nazi scientist he believed long dead, is alive and orchestrating a diabolical project to spark the rise of a Fourth Reich.
“Building on his extraordinary work with The Crown, Peter continues to examine the political and emotional forces which, through the 20th century, have molded the world we live in today. That he does so via the intimate human stories within the sweep of history makes his storytelling powerfully relatable,” said Orchid Pictures founder Suzanne Mackie, who is also an executive producer on the series, via Deadline.
Levin’s novel initially spawned a theatrical adaptation in 1978 written by Heywood Gould (The Equalizer, Cocktail) and directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (Planet of the Apes, Patton), according to Deadline. That film, which featured Laurence Olivier (Rebecca, Sleuth) as Ezra Liebermann and Gregory Peck (To Kill a Mockingbird, Spellbound) as Dr. Josef Mengele, scored fived Academy Award nominations.
Per Deadline, alongside Orchid Pictures’ Mackie, Netflix’s The Boys from Brazil is executive produced by Simon Heath (Line of Duty, Save Me) and director Alex Gabassi (The Crown, Black Doves).