They made Dark, they made 1899, and now Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese have not only signed a brand new deal with Netflix, they’ve got their next show lined up too. The German sci-fi creators have now been tasked by the streamer to adapt Boom Studios’ popular horror comic Something Is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV, Werther Dell’Edera, and Miquel Muerto.
Back in 2021, news first broke that Netflix was going to adapt the comic, with Mike Flanagan and Trevor Macy, known for The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, attached. According to Deadline, since then Netflix has “decided to go in a different direction with the property.” Enter Bo Odar and Friese, who signed a reported eight-figure with Netflix to develop new shows, and this is the start.
Something Is Killing the Children was originally published in September 2019 and centres on a boy named James. James survives a string of violent attacks on children in his town but can’t get the adults to do anything about it. They take notice though when a mysterious stranger arrives; her name is Erica Slaughter, and she’s a monster killer. The comic was originally envisioned as a miniseries, but it got so popular, it was turned into an ongoing series.
That story seems right in the wheelhouse of Bo Odar and Friese based on the subject matter of their previous shows, but it also seemed in the wheelhouse of Flanagan and Macy. Out of everything here, the most curious piece isn’t that Netflix retained the Dark team, nor is it that Flanagan is off it, because he has since started developing projects for Amazon. It’s trying to imagine the difference in the approaches. Will this new take have a different level of violence? Lean more into the mythology? We don’t know. But fingers crossed it fares better than 1899, which was cancelled way too soon.
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