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Scene from "The Swarm": ZDF director raves about European politicians
Photo: Staudinger + Franke / ZDF
The lavishly staged eco-thriller "Der Schwarm" got off to a better start in the ZDF media library than any other streaming series.
As the Mainz broadcaster reported on Thursday at the request of the dpa news agency, the first episode of the Frank Schätzing film adaptation reached 2.0 million views between February 22nd and March 1st.
Episode two was viewed 1.5 million times.
Episode three reached 1.4 million views.
More episodes of the eight-part series have just now been released.
"'The Swarm' is an outstanding example of innovative fictional television made in Europe," ZDF quoted a speech by its director Norbert Himmler in Brussels on Thursday to around 350 European politicians.
»The film adaptation of ›The Swarm‹ shows: With the right partners, European productions are internationally competitive.« The series about a revenge of nature was created under the leadership of ZDF as an international co-production together with France Télévisions, Rai, ORF, SRF and the Viaplay Group and Hulu Japan.
The series shows how more and more marine and coastal regions in Canada, Peru, southern France, Scandinavia and other parts of the world are becoming the scene of mysterious natural phenomena.
Marine scientists around the world are desperate to understand what is happening and contain the threat.
The fact that the heroes also have time to flirt in between is a classic part of successful TV material.
Schätzing, however, resented this change.
In an interview with the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, he made a comparison with the ZDF romantic series Rosamunde Pilcher: "It's more pilfering than raving."
Schätzing's core criticism of the series: »That it falls short of its potential.
Some things are ready for the cinema, others emotional and talkative relationship box TV.« The ZDF appeared not very happy about this scolding.
"From our point of view, 'The Swarm' is a very successful and contemporary adaptation of the novel from 2004." Film adaptations of literary material always differed considerably from the book in terms of narrative form and dramaturgy, according to ZDF.
Read our reviewer's review here.
Explaining his approach to the project, producer and showrunner Frank Doelger said: “For me, it was crucial to envision the series as a 'monster movie' in which the protagonists are aware that something is out there but don't really know , What.
The monster's existence is meant to be hinted at from the start, but not revealed until the very end.
A monster film, then, in which we realize that we are the monsters.«
"The Swarm" runs from Monday, March 6th to Thursday, March 9th in the ZDF program, two episodes each from 8:15 p.m. 6 episodes are already available in the ZDF media library. Episodes 7 and 8 will be activated from Wednesday, March 8, 10 a.m.
feb/dpa