Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 21, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Universum Film, film distributor, independent video market leader and active since 2005 as a co-producer of promising feature films, has secured the film rights to the cult character ‘Dr Mabuse’ from Artur Brauner’s CCC Filmkunst, which thrilled an audience of millions in cinemas with films about the super-criminal in the 1960s.
Rat Pack Filmproduktion (‘The Wave’, ‘Hui Buh: The Goofy Ghost’, ‘Neues vom Wixxer’) will develop the script and produce the film together with Universum Film (co-productions including ‘Open Water 2’, ‘Transsiberian’, ‘Princess Lillifee’) and CCC Filmkunst. Rat Pack producer Christian Becker plans the film version of ‘Dr Mabuse’ as a major, contemporary cinematic action thriller with socially critical allusions.
‘The criminal icon Dr Mabuse has the qualities of a modern, exciting supervillain and makes most film villains look old,’ says Tania Reichert-Facilides, Managing Director of Universum Film. ‘Dr Mabuse is not a one-dimensional criminal burdened with clichés, but a man with a dark past, with feelings, ingenious abilities and a gloomy vision of the future. The way he manipulates other people and slips into different disguises makes him an intangible threat of the kind familiar from modern thrillers and horror films.’
The character of super-criminal Dr Mabuse was invented by Luxembourg writer Norbert Jacques. The first novel, ‘Doctor Mabuse, the Gambler’, appeared in 1921 and featured the ‘James Bond of crime’: a criminal genius with hypnotic abilities and a man with a thousand faces. As a super-criminal, he attempts to achieve world domination. The novel became a great popular success and was filmed by Fritz Lang in 1922, providing his breakthrough. Fritz Lang’s sound film ‘The Testament of Dr Mabuse’, based on the novel’s sequel, then appeared in 1933.
In 1953, Norbert Jacques sold the rights to the Dr Mabuse character to Artur Brauner and the Berlin CCC film company. Six new black-and-white Mabuse films were thus made between 1960 and 1964: ‘The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse’, again directed by Fritz Lang, as well as ‘In the Steel Net of Dr Mabuse’ (1961), ‘The Testament of Dr Mabuse’ (1962), ‘The Invisible Claws of Dr Mabuse’ (1962), ‘Scotland Yard Hunts Dr Mabuse’ (1963), ‘The Death Rays of Dr Mabuse’ (1964).
‘My father Artur Brauner entertained generations with these films,’ says Dr Alice Brauner, CCC Film, adding: ‘We look forward to transporting this legendary character into the new millennium together with Universum Film and Rat Pack Filmproduktion in a modernised, original and entertaining way.’
Filming is scheduled for 2009 / 2010.
Further information:
- Further information
