Although Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil is well-timed, it is hard to imagine how the show’s creators will work around the novel’s most infamously controversial twist. Published in 1976, The Boys from Brazil is a sci-fi conspiracy thriller by The Stepford Wives author Ira Levin.
Levin, who also penned the iconic horror bestseller Rosemary’s Baby, was famous for blending social satire and political commentary into fast-paced, twisty genre narratives. The Boys from Brazil fit this mold, with its high-concept plot about secret clones incorporating real-life historical figures to ground what would otherwise be a wild storyline.
The news that Netflix is set to adapt The Boys from Brazil with a starry cast is exciting for numerous reasons, not least that The Boys from Brazil is one of Levin’s most accomplished books. Its first screen adaptation came from Planet of the Apes director Franklin J. Schaffner in 1978, who assembled an incredible cast for the story.
Netflix Is Turning Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil Into A Miniseries
1978’s The Boys from Brazil starred Gregory Peck and Lawrence Olivier, and the acclaimed thriller earned a trio of Oscar nominations upon release. It might seem like that would be a tough act to follow, but this is far from the first time that Levin’s work has been revisited on the big screen in recent years.
In 2004, director Frank Oz remade 1975’s The Stepford Wives with Nicole Kidman in the lead role, while in 2014, 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby was remade as a small-screen miniseries. Only last year, the Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7A was released, so if anything, it is arguably surprising that this The Boys from Brazil re-imagining took so long.
The Boys from Brazil tells the story of Yakov Liebermann, a Nazi hunter who is tipped off about real-life Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele’s attempts to revive Hitler’s Third Reich. After Liebermann’s unseen informant is killed, the Nazi hunter begins to look into his research and unearths the terrifying truth over three decades of searching.
With Jeremy Strong as the novel’s Nazi-hunting protagonist, Netflix’s take on The Boys from Brazil is set to be a starry affair. Gillian Anderson, Shira Haas, Daniel Brühl, August Diehl, and Lizzy Caplan have also been cast in the miniseries, which will come from The Crown creator Peter Morgan.
However, only time will tell whether the series will successfully recreate the plot of the novel due to the time that has passed between its original publication and 2025. To explain further requires some spoilers for the storyline of The Boys From Brazil, although it is unclear whether the miniseries will adapt these specific plot points.
How The Boys From Brazil Could Change Levin’s Entire Story
The big shock of the original novel is that its villain, Josef Mengele, is a real person who was alive and in hiding at the time of the book’s publication. With no one cast as Mengele in the Netflix version of The Boys From Brazil, it’s not clear if the series will update its setting or stay in the ‘70s.
This is a pretty vital detail since, while the specific contours of Mengele’s fictional plan are pretty fanciful in the novel, his depiction is not. The Boys From Brazil made a daring decision by casting a real-life, then-living war criminal as its lead antagonist, and it is hard to see how a modern remake could achieve a similar effect.
Part of the reason there are so many versions of Rosemary’s Baby and so many shows and movies inspired by The Stepford Wives is that, although Levin’s work was timely, those two novels also contained prescient, perennially relevant themes. Don’t Worry Darling and Get Out could borrow from The Stepford Wives because its storyline wasn’t tied to specific historical figures.
Similarly, while Danielle Valentine’s update of Rosemary’s Baby, Delicate Condition, left a lot to be desired, the re-imagining was able to happen in the first place because Levin’s original novel isn’t about a real-life couple from the ‘60s. In contrast, The Boys From Brazil is very much about Mengele and, in a broader sense, how the US, the UK, Italy, and France rehabilitated Nazis.
Why Netflix’s Sci-fi Thriller Update Is Perfectly Timed
In this regard, The Boys From Brazil is arguably the most timely thriller that Netflix could produce right now. From Elon Musk’s salute at Donald Trump’s second inauguration to J. K. Rowling’s denial of the Holocaust’s persecution of trans people, Nazi apologism has returned to mainstream news with a vengeance in recent years.
As such, Netflix’s remake of The Boys From Brazil could be even better timed than American Horror Story season 13’s misguided Rosemary’s Baby homage. That said, this won’t matter if the show can’t find a way to update the novel’s villain.
At the time when The Boys From Brazil was originally published, Mengele occupied the unusual position of being simultaneously both a historical figure and a real-life, living public enemy. It is tough to imagine how The Boys From Brazil will recreate this villain in 2026.
Cast
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Jeremy Strong
Yakov Liebermann
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Lizzy Caplan
Hannah Liebermann
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Daniel Brühl
Von Harteneck
