The offering from Amazon Prime Video is gaining momentum and has recently attracted attention especially with The Boys and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Now there is a new series that puts much of that in the shade: The Gryphon.
What kind of series is this? “The Gryphon” is a fantasy series produced in Germany. The first season consists of six episodes, directed by Sebastian Marka and Max Zähle based on an idea by Erol Yesilkaya.
Since May you can stream it on Amazon Prime Video. All six episodes have a duration of about one hour.
The series is based on the novel of the same name from 1989 by Heike and Wolfgang Hohlbein. It tells the story of three friends who discover a dangerous and fantastic world called “The Black Tower”, where a fearsome gryphon reigns.
The 16-year-old protagonist Mark (Jeremias Meyer) is the only one who can defeat the gryphon – but he does not see himself as a hero and does not want to be one. However, after someone is kidnapped into the world of the gryphon, he must venture into the world of the Black Tower.
Here you can see a teaser trailer for the fantasy series:
According to our colleagues from Moviepilot the plot resembles Supernatural, because: Two brothers and their missing father have to preserve the family’s legacy with the help of a family chronicle.
The Gryphon takes place in the 90s, which is highlighted by the clothing, hairstyles, and music, and thus resembles Stranger Things – even though the series is set a decade earlier.
More popular than The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and House of the Dragon
How popular is the series? On Amazon’s streaming platform, “The Gryphon” is well received. Currently, the first season has 586 ratings with an average rating of 4.1 out of 5. Thus, it performs better on average than The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – where the first season only has a rating of 3.3.
The users on Rotten Tomatoes are also enthusiastic about the German production. “The Gryphon” (listed there under the English title “The Gryphon”) has an average audience rating of 89%.
For comparison: House of the Dragon has 82% which is quite good, but does not come close to the German fantasy series on Rotten Tomatoes. Stranger Things has an audience rating of 90%.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has a rating of only 38% there. The production of the first season was more expensive than that of one of the best series on Netflix overall.
