Christoph Waltz is returning to television, or rather streaming, with Amazon Prime. The Django star is headlining a new series for the streaming platform, which will be a dark comedy thriller called The Consultant.
Waltz has spent the last few years bouncing between television and movies. Before he signed on with the new Amazon Prime series, his last small screen appearance was on the now-defunct Quibi service, where he starred in Most Dangerous Game.
Waltz's newest project, The Consultant, is being directed by WandaVision's Matt Shakman and is based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Bentley Little. The story is described by Amazon as " a darkly comedic workplace thriller." For now, it doesn't appear that The Consultant showrunners are ready to announce most of the rest of the cast. Waltz will play the titular character, a man named Mr. Patoff, who is brought in when a failing business hires him to streamline its approach.
Those who run the company are apparently led to believe that everything will be just fine. They also believe that the fix is going to be an easy and painless process. The only problem is that the No Time To Die actor's character has gained an immense amount of power in a very short period of time. Patoff manages to invade employees' lives and apparently run amok about the way someone watching a dark comedy might expect.
In addition to No Time To Die, Waltz appeared in The French Dispatch this year. Neither of those films allowed the veteran German actor to stretch his comedic chops the way The Consultant might allow him to do. He's widely known as someone who can vacillate between serious and funny, as he did in Django: Unchained. He can also stick with the serious, imposing character, as he did with Most Dangerous Game and Inglorious Bastards.
Prior to taking the lead on WandaVision, Shakman had spent quite a bit of time mostly penning an episode here or there for series like The Boys and Succession. His longest stint as a writer for a television series came from 2007 to 2017, when he was credited as the lead writer for 43 episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. What he might have in store for Waltz and the cast when it gets filled out is still largely unknown, as is the official release date for the Amazon Prime original series.
The Consultant is from MGM Television and Amazon Studios.
Source: Amazon Studios