Gomorrah writers to adapt Nazi novel

The Butchers of Berlin was published in May 2016

Montreal-based prodco Connect3 Media has signed up screenwriters Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli to lead the book-to-TV adaptation of a novel set in war-torn Nazi Germany.

Cineflix Media-backed Connect3, led by Pablo Salzman, and London-based Racine Media, part-owned by the US financier Bill Dye, have secured the TV rights to murder mystery novel The Butchers of Berlin. In partnership with Cineflix, the companies will develop the book into a scripted series for the international market.

Written by Chris Petit, the book centres on a financial crime investigator who in 1943 is assigned to a homicide case. The book is the first in a planned series following the character through the plotting and paranoia of the Third Reich.

The Butchers of Berlin was published in 2016 by Simon & Schuster UK. Petit’s other novels include political thrillers The Psalm Killer, The Human Pool and The Passenger, which is currently being developed as a feature film.

Fasoli and Ravagli are among the writers of Italian crime drama Gomorrah, thriller Don’t Leave Me (Non Mi Lasciare) and are also currently writing ZeroZeroZero for Canal+, Sky and Amazon.

Salzman and Julien Leroux, senior VP of global scripted coproductions for Cineflix Media, will be shopping the series at Mipcom in Cannes next month, as well as MIA in Rome.