Zodiac producers Brad Fischer and James Vanderbilt are reteaming for a new true serial killer tale with Blackout. Variety reports that their Mythology Entertainment has taken the big screen rights to “A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin: The Chilling True Story of the S-Bahn Murderer” by Scott Andrew Selby and have set Mark Hogan to provide the adapted screenplay.
Published earlier this year, the book explores a ten-month spree of killings and the men that ultimately brought a madman to justice. It is officially described as follows:
As the Nazi war machine caused death and destruction throughout Europe, one man in the Fatherland began his own reign of terror.
This is the true story of the pursuit and capture of a serial killer in the heart of the Third Reich.
For all appearances, Paul Ogorzow was a model German. An employed family man, party member, and sergeant in the infamous Brownshirts, he had worked his way up in the Berlin railroad from a manual laborer laying track to assistant signalman. But he also had a secret need to harass and frighten women. Then he was given a gift from the Nazi high command.
Due to Allied bombing raids, a total blackout was instituted throughout Berlin, including on the commuter trainstrains often used by women riding home alone from the factories.
Under cover of darkness and with a helpless flock of victims to choose from, Ogorzows depredations grew more and more horrific. He escalated from simply frightening women to physically attacking them, eventually raping and murdering them. Beginning in September 1940, he started casually tossing their bodies off the moving train. Though the Nazi party tried to censor news of the attacks, the women of Berlin soon lived in a state of constant fear.
It was up to Wilhelm Lüdtke, head of the Berlin polices serious crimes division, to hunt down the madman in their midst.
Blackout will be executive produced by Mythologys Jon Silk.
