Looking at responses, I think Happy End being a disappointment was in no small part a matter of time: after five years, Michael Haneke’s return was, by his count, ordinary, familiar, not substantial in any way that necessitates the fact that at least one more feature might’ve been made in the same stretch. I won’t say he’s making up for lost time, since a) it’s not my place, b) we both know he doesn’t give a damn about what we’re thinking, but it feels that way — length-wise, at least.
In his own words: “After ten TV movies and 12 films, I wanted to tell a longer story for once.” And so it’s to ten-part television with Kelvin’s Book, a “high concept series [that] is set in a dystopian world” wherein “a group of young people in a not too distant future […] are forced to make an emergency landing outside of their home and are confronted with the actual face of their home country for the first time.” [Deadline]
Michael Haneke’s The Maze Runner? Perhaps not quite, though parsing for meaning will yield little thus far — save for comments from Nico Hoffmann, whose UFA Fiction will produce, that it’s marked by “contemporary themes and a reflection of the digital age.” The former is a constant through his oeuvre, the latter a newly introduced component within Happy End, and how well it was introduced is up to you, as well as whether or not that last scene is intentionally hilarious or hugely dunderheaded.
While it seems to be early days on this one, one hopes the announcement signals a soon-ish production start. The size taken into account, Kelvin’s Book may not be a while off; one just hopes it yields something more substantial than some recent doings on Haneke’s end.