Disney+ orders Dutch crime drama original based on Simon de Waal book

Disney+ has ordered its first scripted original in the Netherlands, a psychological thriller based on a novel by Simon de Waal.

Simon de Waal

Nemesis is being adapted the novel of the same name and will premiere on Disney+ in autumn 2023.

Produced by Dutch production company Pupkin, the eight-part drama is a police thriller about a public prosecutor who, after a brutal murder of a key witness in her own house, decides to take matters into her own hands.

With an underground team of detectives, she begins the hunt for a group of international criminals who have long been out of reach of the law.

Disney+ described the show as a “psychological thriller about a woman in a world of men who have been supporting each other for too long.”

The showrunners will be Willem Bosch and Pieter Kuijpers (Van God Los, The Spectacular, Nood).

It comes after The Walt Disney Company last year pledged to source, develop and produce content with European production companies as it targets 60 European original series by 2024, having previously aimed for 50.

Mascha van Erven, director of local original productions at Disney+ Benelux, said: “Nemesis is a thrilling crime series about the influence of the crime scene on our society and a wayward woman in the Public Prosecution Service who goes to war in an unorthodox way. The best storytellers within the Netherlands will tell the story.”

Bosch added: “With the Disney+ series Nemesis, Pupkin is taking a major new step in realising its ambitions: high-quality and high-profile Dutch-spoken drama that can compete with the major titles of other European countries. [This is a] universal story about the weakening of trust in government, which at the same time could only be made in this way in the Netherlands.”