MGM Remaking German Sensation ‘System Crasher’ With Channing Tatum To Star; His Free Association Producing With The Picture Company

EXCLUSIVE: MGM has acquired the rights to remake the acclaimed 2019 German film System Crasher. Channing Tatum will star and Free Association will produce along with The Picture Company. The deal comes as MGM and United Artists Releasing today bows Dog, the comedy that Tatum and Reid Carolin co-directed from a script by Carolin and Brett Rodriguez.

Tatum will produce System Crasher along with his Free Association partners Reid Carolin & Peter Kiernan, with Michael Parets overseeing. The project will be a co-production with The Picture Company, whose partners Alex Heineman & Andrew Rona are also producing.

Free Association’s Garret Levitz will write the script. The rights were pursued by The Picture Company and Free Association. Together they brought the package to MGM, where Free Association has a newly minted overall deal.

The original German film centers on a young girl with a traumatic past. Constantly moving from one child-services home to the next because of her aggressive behavior, she’s labeled a “system crasher” and seen as a hopeless cause. That’s until she gets paired with a caring but tough anger-management coach. They form an unlikely bond, and he helps her helps her find peace by reconnecting her with nature and also nurturing her passion for boxing. Released in 2019, System Crasher became an acclaimed and commercial hit throughout Europe and won several German Film Awards including Best Picture.

The remake will be set in the U.S. and look to also shine a light on childhood trauma, and healing.

Nora Fingscheidt wrote and directed the original, and she will be executive producer on the remake along with Peter Hartwig, Jonas and Jakob Weydemann, who also produced the original. Fingscheidt just directed the Sandra Bullock starrer The Unforgivable for Netflix.

MGM’s Elishia Holmes, who championed the project, will oversee for the studio.

This will be Free Association’s third project under the overall MGM deal after Dog and Zoe Kravitz’s upcoming directorial debut Pussy Island. Tatum next stars in The Lost City with Bullock.

The Picture Company also has the comic adaptation Mercy Sparks at MGM. The producer most recently released the Netflix action film Gunpowder Milkshake.

The rights deal was handled by Casarotto Ramsay and Associates, Ilene Feldman Management and Agentur Homebase.