A trio of new dramas and two returning originals are in HBO Europe’s fall-winter lineup as it continues to increase its original programming efforts outside the U.S.
When the European arm of HBO officially unveils its new fall-winter plans later Friday, it is expected to announce a Dec. 26 launch for “Success,” the highly anticipated Croatian drama helmed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Danis Tanovic (“No Man’s Land”). The show is HBO Europe’s first original from the Adriatic region, and tells the story of four strangers bound together by a violent event. HBO has committed to making at least one original drama per year from Adriatic countries.
HBO will also release the first trailer for upcoming Polish crime drama “Blinded by the Lights.” The action-packed curtain raiser for the Warsaw-set drama underscores its key settings and themes: high-level cocaine trafficking, gangsters, and nightclubs. Based on the book by Jakub Zulczyk, it follows drug dealer Kuba (Kamil Nozynski) over a week in which his business and life spiral out of control. It bows on HBO Europe on Oct. 27.
The third original is “Hackerville,” the Romanian-German co-production between HBO and TNT that world-premiered in competition at the Zurich Film Festival. Co-creator and executive producer Joerg Winger (“Deutschland 83”) recently told Variety that the cyber crime drama “will put Romania on the map of the international TV drama scene.” HBO will launch it Nov. 4.
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HBO Europe has been moving more deeply into original programming having started down that road in 2010. It now has a pipeline of new and returning dramas. Returners for the fall-winter season include “Golden Life,” from Hungary, which will launch Oct. 14. There is also a new 36-episode run of the Czech version of “In Treatment,” which HBO has remade in several territories in Central and Eastern Europe. It launches in early 2019.
With non-English-language drama increasingly popular around the world, HBO in the U.S. now runs some of the originals from its European operation.
Antony Root, EVP of original programming and production for HBO Europe, said that the five new and returning dramas launching over the next four months “cover a rich mix of genres, stories and settings. And with each show launching day-and-date in all our 17 European territories, we are delighted to be offering our subscribers a greater range and volume of original dramas than ever before.”
Check out the “Blinded by the Lights” trailer below.