The Swarm to bring an oceanic apocalypse to television

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

(The image above is from MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS, and I doubt the project discussed below is going to be anything like it.)

Twelve years ago, Uma Thurman teamed with producers Michael Souvignier, Ica Souvignier, and Till Grönemeyer to acquire the film rights to author Frank Schätzing's novel The Swarm (you can pick up a copy at THIS LINK), which is a "nature run amok" story but has nothing to do with the 1978 killer bee movie of the same name. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS screenwriter Ted Tally was handling the adaptation, Dino De Laurentiis was going to help finance the film… But that approach to the material never made it into production.

Now The Swarm is getting another shot at being brought to life on the screen, this time as an eight-part mini-series from Game of Thrones executive producer Frank Doelger's Intaglio Films, a joint venture between Beta Film and ZDF Enterprises.

Schätzing and Eric Welbers will be executive producers on The Swarm alongside Doelger. Filming on the mini-series is expected to take place sometime in 2019.

A global environmental thriller, the novel is set in 

a present day where anomalies and unnatural behavior in marine animals are causing upheaval all over the world. Millions of strange worms suddenly appear on the bottom of the North Sea, drilling their way through frozen methane, threatening to destabilize the entire continental shelf. Swarms of mussels stop large vessels from maneuvering. Toxic jellyfish, lobsters and whales start attacking human beings along the coasts of the world. It follows a global group of scientists and military who come together to tackle one of the biggest challenges mankind has ever faced. They make the chilling discovery that we are not the only intelligent species on this planet – and that deep down at the bottom of the sea resides a collective intelligence which has suffered the ravages of civilization on its habitat and decided to fight back.

An apocalypse brought about by sea-dwelling creatures? I haven't read the book, but this idea sounds awesome to me.

Schätzing had this to say about the project: 

The question about a possible film adaptation of The Swarm was the one I was most frequently asked about. Every time my answer was: deadlock. Who would have thought that the ideal team would come together after all, that visionary TV producers and pro-players including Game of Thrones creative force Frank Doelger would come on board to steer this large-scale international TV series, which is the strongest narrative form one could adapt an adventure like The Swarm into. It’s full steam ahead from now on. I’m very excited and looking forward to this collaboration."

Doelger said, 

After having spent eight seasons in the mythical world of Game of Thrones, it is great to return to the present with The Swarm and its searing exploration of the impending doom brought about by man’s callous disregard of the oceans, a doomsday scenario as dire as anything imagined by George R.R. Martin."

It will probably be a while before this mini-series reaches the airwaves, but I'm already looking forward to it with a good amount of anticipation.