General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

The Gryphon

The Gryphon (German: Der Greif) is a German fantasy television series that premiered on Amazon Prime Video on 26 May 2023, adapted from the 1989 novel Der Greif by Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein.¹^•² Its six episodes follow three teenage outsiders, Mark, Memo, and Becky, who discover a parallel world called the Black Tower, where the Gryphon, a world-devouring monster, has plundered and subjugated all living creatures for centuries.³

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Der Greif; English title The Gryphon¹
First aired	26 May 2023, all six episodes, Amazon Prime Video¹^•⁴
Source material	The 1989 novel Der Greif by Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein²
Creators	Sebastian Marka and Erol Yesilkaya (showrunners); directors Sebastian Marka and Max Zähle⁴
Lead cast	Jeremias Meyer (Mark), Zoran Pingel (Memo), Lea Drinda (Becky)¹
Setting	Krefeld, Germany, in 1994, and the parallel world of the Black Tower²
Production	W&B Television and DogHaus Film; executive producers Quirin Berg, Max Wiedemann, and André Zoch⁴
Status	One season; canceled/ended¹

Spoilers

Premise

The series is set in the town of Krefeld in 1994. Mark (Jeremias Meyer), Memo (Zoran Pingel), and Becky (Lea Drinda) are outsiders whose coming of age collides with the Black Tower, a fantastic parallel world ruled by the monstrous Gryphon with dark magic over a nightmarish realm.² The legends of this world are the reason Mark's parents separated and his father died early, and Mark must recognize that the Black Tower is not his father's delusion but real.²

Mark's older brother Thomas (Theo Trebs) tells him that he is the only person who can defeat the Gryphon, but Mark does not want to risk his life fighting monsters while dealing with school, his tantrums, and his first love.²^•⁵ When Thomas disappears, the three friends set off into the Black Tower to face its danger and end the Gryphon's reign.²^•³

Episodes

All six episodes were released on 26 May 2023.¹ The German titles, with run times as listed by Gadgets 360, are:¹^•⁴

"Gegen schlechte Zeiten" (A Remedy for Bad Times), 59 minutes
"Nicht meine Baustelle" (None of my Business), 58 minutes
"F*ing Superheld" (F*ing Superhero), 57 minutes
"Easy Peasy", 51 minutes
"Er ist bereit" (He's Ready), 58 minutes
"Spür den Hass!" (Feel Your Hatred!), 1 hour 9 minutes

Production

The adaptation was developed by showrunners Erol Yesilkaya, who also served as head writer, and Sebastian Marka; the writing team included Boris Dennulat, Senad Halilbasic, and Stefanie Veith.²^•⁴ Filming for the six-episode first season ran from July to November 2021 in Berlin and its surroundings.²

A flagship German original. The project took almost five years to reach the screen. Quirin Berg, who runs W&B TV and was an executive producer on Netflix's Dark, pitched it early to Philip Pratt, head of German Originals at Amazon Prime Video, who called it "the biggest [German fantasy] project since The NeverEnding Story," the 1984 film adaptation of Michael Ende's novel.⁶ Hohlbein's book series has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide over four decades, and the author gave the producers "freedom to fictionalize" in the adaptation.⁶

The production used both visual effects and prosthetics for the supernatural creatures, with the creature concept helmed by artists who had previously worked on Guillermo del Toro's projects.⁶ The team also chose a 1990s setting to draw on the era's cultural references, an approach compared with Stranger Things and Dark.⁶

Reception

Audience measures were moderate. The series held an IMDb rating of 6.9/10, and Rotten Tomatoes reported an average Popcornmeter score of 89 percent from more than 100 ratings with no reviewed critics' score.⁷^•³ Reviewers noted an uneven balance between dark fantasy and coming-of-age story: the Heaven of Horror review praised the soundtrack, built on 1990s hits, but found the plot underexplained and few characters likable, while the Compare TV review called the pacing uneven but credited the visuals and the lead performance.⁵^•⁷

The series ran as a single season and is listed as canceled/ended.¹

Other works titled The Gryphon

The title also belongs to unrelated books. Nick Bantock's The Gryphon (2001) is the first volume of his Morning Star trilogy, continuing the illustrated epistolary saga of Griffin & Sabine through new correspondents, the long-distance lovers Matthew and Isabella.⁸^•⁹ Separately, Stacey Rourke's Gryphon Series is a four-book young adult paranormal fantasy about nineteen-year-old Celeste Garrett, published in a boxed set in 2017.¹⁰

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Genre and subject-scripted series › Fantasy, supernatural, and horror series › High fantasy and mythic adventure series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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