The joint venture between ‘Babylon Berlin’ producers Beta Film and Germany’s ZDF Enterprises will develop, finance and produce English-language drama for the international market.
Emmy-winning producer Frank Doelger (Game of Thrones, John Adams) will head up Intaglio Films, a new joint venture between Babylon Berlin producers Beta Film and ZDF Enterprises, the commercial arm of German public broadcaster ZDF.
Doelger will run development and production at the Berlin-based Intaglio, will aims to make high-end English-language drama series out of Germany, targeting both national and international markets.
Moritz von Kruedener, managing director at Beta Film, and Robert Franke, vp of drama at ZDF Enterprises, will manage the venture’s business affairs.
Doelger was a producer on Game of Thrones‘ first season and an executive producer on the fantasy epic from 2012-2017. He’s won two Emmys, both for best drama series, for Game of Thrones, as well as Emmys for HBO’s John Adams and The Gathering Storm.
“Of all the opportunities presented to me upon completion of Game of Thrones, the new joint venture proposed by Beta Film and ZDF Enterprises was by far the most interesting and creatively challenging,” said Doelger. “I am looking forward to continuing to work with the established creative community, as well as emerging talent, on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Beta Film has been aggressively expanding in the growing market of high-end TV dramas, most recently with Tom Tykwer’s Babylon Berlin, a big-budget German-language period drama the company co-produced with Germany’s X-Filme, ARD and Sky Deutschland, and which Beta sold worldwide, including to Netflix for the U.S.
On Monday, Beta will present its new series, M for Murder, a modern-day re-imagining of the Fritz Lang serial killer classic M, at the Drama Series Days, the Berlin festival’s TV-focused sidebar.
This story first appeared in The Hollywood Reporter’s Feb. 19 daily issue at the Berlin Film Festival.