German producer Regina Ziegler will take the rise and fall of German media tycoon Leo Kirch to TV screens as a two-part movie.
The production will commence in 2015 with a documentary planned as well, reports German news magazine Der Spiegel. Kirch’s life from “a Franconian farmer boy to one of the republic’s most powerful people” was extraordinary, Ziegler told the magazine.
As an advisor, Ziegler has engaged Michael Jürgs, the former head of German magazine Stern whose book on publisher Axel Springer she used as the basis for a movie produced for public broadcaster ARD.
Kirch entered the movie rights dealing business in 1956; later he became one of the founders of commercial television in Germany. In 2002, his media group had to file for insolvency. Until his death in 2011, Kirch fought a legal battle against Deutsche Bank which he blamed to be partially responsible for his company’s demise.