Amazon Studios Developing TV Series Adaptation Of The Wolfenstein Franchise
In a story first broken by Variety, with the hit series Fallout being renewed for a third season, Amazon/MGM Studios has set its sights on the video game world with upcoming shows such as Mass Effect and God of War. They’re even venturing into the tabletop sphere with Warhammer 40,000 starring Henry Cavill, but they’re not ready to hit the pause button just yet. The streaming service will be bringing the super slaughter of super soldiers to the small screen with a series based on the classic first-person shooter, Wolfenstein.
Debuting in 1981 on PC, Castle Wolfenstein puts the player in the role of an Allied POW during World War II who is locked in a Nazi castle, awaiting interrogation by the SS Stormtroopers. While they’re waiting for this, a dying prisoner emerges from a hiding place to hand the player a fully loaded pistol with 10 rounds and three grenades before passing away. The objective is to escape from the castle, and if the player finds the battle plans before escaping, they will be promoted, and the complexity of the subsequent run will be increased, while the castle’s layout changes and the game starts again.
The game was critically acclaimed and became one of the highest-selling games of the early 80s. It was followed by Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein 3D, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Wolfenstein RPG, Wolfenstein (2009), Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wolfenstein: Old Blood, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot. Castle Wolfenstein would lay the foundation for first-person shooter games that influenced future classics such as Doom, Counter-Strike, Halo, Borderlands, every Tom Clancy game, and the forgotten 1990 gem The Super Spy for Neo Geo.
Serving as the creator, writer, executive producer, and showrunner will be Patrick Somerville under his chaoticgood.tv production banner. Executive Producers are Fallout alum Jonathan (Christopher’s little brother) Nolan, Lisa Joy, and Athena Wickham through Kilter Films, James Altman of Keyframe Films, and Jerk Gustafsson of Wolfenstein developer MachineGames.
A fan of the Wolfenstein games since childhood, Somerville is best known for creating the shows Maniac at Netflix and Station Eleven at HBO Max, along with serving as executive producer on both, and the showrunner on Station Eleven. He was also a writer/supervising producer on the critically acclaimed HBO series The Leftovers, The Bridge, and 24: Live Another Day.
Nothing has been announced yet in terms of the show’s plot, desired casting choices, or which entry it will take more inspiration from, but the official tagline reads, “The story of killing Nazis is evergreen.” This comes as no surprise in a world where the right pair of eyes can walk outside their front doors and find one behind every blade of grass.
