The team behind Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front is joining forces with The Night Manager producers The Ink Factory on period drama Break, based on the life of 1930s German tennis champion Gottfried von Cramm.
All Quiet star Felix Kammerer will play von Cramm, with Daniel Brühl directing. Brühl, a co-star and executive producer on All Quiet, made his directorial debut with the German drama Next Door in 2021.
Oscar-nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini (Drive, The Wings of the Dove) will pen the script, adapting Marshall Jon Fisher’s non-fiction book A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played. The story will be told in German and English.
Von Cramm’s impressive sporting career — a two-time French Open winner, he was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1937 — was set against the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich, which saw the good-looking young champion as an ideal propaganda tool. Von Cramm’s life was filled with political and personal complexity, including a high-stakes love triangle and a secret that could cost him his life. At the 1937 Davis Cup in Wimbledon, Von Cramm faced down American star Don Budge in a (literal) do-or-die match.
“Gottfried’s life offers a thrilling prism to look at the history of Europe on the cusp of war — but more than that, it is the story of a deeply personal moral conflict and a dangerous romance — and the life-and-death stakes of the greatest tennis match ever played,” said The Ink Factory’s co-founders and co-CEOs Simon and Stephen Cornwell.
All Quiet producer Malte Grunert and director Edward Berger will produce Break through their respective companies, Amusement Park and Nine Hours, together with The Ink Factory and Marc Platt and Adam Siegel for Marc Platt Productions (La La Land, Cruella) in association with 127 Wall, with Joe Tsai and Arthur Wang executive producing. Fifth Season will handle world sales on the project.
Added Grunert: “The story of Gottfried von Cramm is one of personal heroism displayed with unassuming elegance. At a time when the freedom and liberty we enjoy are once again under threat from rising nationalism and far-right politics, it feels as timely as ever.”
