Jack Lowden
Jack Lowden is set to headline Apple TV+’s upcoming drama series inspired by Metropolis, the final installment of Philip Kerr’s acclaimed Berlin Noir novels. The project, which will film on location in Berlin, is directed by Tom Shankland and scripted by Peter Straughan, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Conclave. The story is adapted from Kerr’s novel, which serves as a prequel to the Bernie Gunther detective saga.
The series is a co-production between Bad Wolf and PlayTone, with executive producers Jane Tranter, Dan McCulloch, and Ryan Rasmussen representing Bad Wolf, and Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman producing under the PlayTone banner. Straughan and Shankland are also attached as executive producers.
Lowden, currently co-starring alongside Gary Oldman in Slow Horses — recently renewed for a seventh season and nominated this week for Outstanding Drama Series at the Emmys — takes on the role of Bernie Gunther in his early years. Set in 1928, Metropolis traces Gunther’s rise as a newly promoted officer in Berlin’s elite Murder Squad as he begins to unravel a chilling string of killings targeting society’s most vulnerable.
Kerr’s Berlin Noir series spanned 14 novels published between 1989 and 2019. Metropolis was completed shortly before the author’s death from cancer in 2018, and serves as the origin story of one of modern noir’s most iconic detectives.