HBO Max unveiled Jan. 13 launches in such key markets as Italy and Germany on Wednesday. And to feed the appetite of potential subscribers for original content, HBO Max parent Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday also revealed a raft of upcoming local original series, including a Gina Lollobrigida docuseries.
“From Germany comes 4 Blocks Zero, a prequel of award-winning gangster drama 4 Blocks, and Banksters, a heist drama based on a true story — both produced by W&B Television,” the company and its streamer said in an announcement. “Also coming in 2026 is a documentary by Beetz Brothers about one of the most spectacular robberies in German history: the theft of the ‘Big Maple Leaf’ gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum.”
But that’s not all. Fans of Netflix’s first German original hit show, Dark, have something to look forward to from its creators as well. “Jantje Friese and Baran Bo Odar (1899) from Dark Ways will produce a thriller series for HBO Max in which the dark tales of Struwwelpeter become gruesome reality,” the streamer unveiled without providing further details. Struwwelpeter, or “Shockheaded Peter,” an 1845 children’s book written and illustrated by the German psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann, has long scared German-speaking children. It contains 10 stories that are cautionary tales with a moral lesson. The first, after which the book is named, tells the story of a dirty and lazy boy who does not groom himself properly, and, as a result, is unloved.
HBO Max in Italy will also get original fare after its launch early next year. Italian local original productions include “a gripping drama that retraces the shocking 2011 murder of Melania Rea, played by Maria Esposito, exposing the fractures of a family, a community and the Italian justice system under relentless media scrutiny,” HBO Max said.
Also premiering Feb. 20 is Marco Bellocchio’s Portobello, starring Fabrizio Gifuni, which is the streamer’s first Italian original and was previously announced, with a debut date now set. The series from the auteur chronicles Italian TV host Enzo Tortora’s fight to clear his name.
Also on the horizon is what the streamer described as “an engaging slate of docuseries.” Among them is Gina Lollobrigida: Diva Contesa, an account of “the battle over the legacy of a cinema icon and an intense family melodrama.”
Another upcoming docuseries is Saman, which a synopsis describes as “the heartbreaking struggle for freedom of a young Pakistani woman murdered by her own family clan for refusing an arranged marriage.”
