Apple TV Casts Firth, Lowden in Kerr's Berlin Noir Series

Apple TV has cast Oscar winner Colin Firth opposite Jack Lowden in an upcoming series adaptation of Philip Kerr's acclaimed Berlin Noir novels, focusing on the detective's early career in 1928 Berlin. The untitled drama, which begins with Kerr's novel Metropolis, follows Lowden's character, Bernie Gunther, a newly promoted officer in the Berlin Murder Squad, as he investigates a serial killer targeting society's most vulnerable victims amid the city's turbulent political landscape.

Firth portrays Paul Lohser, a brilliant but prickly detective with the Berlin Police. Described as meticulous, antisocial, and well-educated, Lohser serves as Gunther's partner and unlikely mentor, forming an odd-couple dynamic that propels the investigation. The story unfolds in the Weimar Republic era, a time of unprecedented freedom and social upheaval just before the rise of the Nazi regime, where Gunther fights for truth in a shifting world.

Production is currently underway in Berlin, directed by BAFTA nominee Tom Shankland and adapted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Peter Straughan. The project reunites Firth and Straughan, who previously collaborated on the 2011 spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier...