Adidas and Puma feud to hit screens in new series backed by Scorsese producer
The legendary brotherly feud that gave birth to sports-shoe giants Adidas and Puma in the same small German town during the 1940s is being adapted into a television series, with producers drawing from family archives to tell the story.
The series is backed by Hollywood-based production company No Fat Ego, which is supported by the family behind the Adidas empire, founded by Adolf 'Adi' Dassler.
The drama will chronicle one of the most riveting sibling rivalries in corporate history—Adi versus his brother Rudolf ('Rudi')—which ultimately led to creating two iconic, competing brands.
The brothers initially ran a family-owned footwear company together, but a rift during World War II drove them apart. Their post-war hostility divided the town of Herzogenaurach—a split that lingers today.
Mark Williams, best known as the creator of the Netflix hit Ozark, has been tapped to lead the project. He is currently reviewing home videos and memorabilia from the Dassler family to shape the narrative.
'Everybody knows the brands, but the story behind them is something we don't really fully know,' Williams told AFP during the Cannes Film Festival.
One of the most delicate aspects of the series will be how the brothers' roles during the war are portrayed—especially in relation to the reputations of today's multi-billion-dollar companies.
Both Adi and Rudi joined the Nazi Party in the 1930s, a common step for members of Germany's business elite at the time. Rudi went to fight and was arrested by Allied forces after the war, while Adi stayed home to keep their company afloat.
The factory itself was seized and repurposed as a munitions plant during the conflict.
Williams described the upcoming show as a 'Succession-type drama between the family,' with a storyline that spans multiple generations, echoing the tension and legacy of HBO's acclaimed series.
Hollywood backing
Niels Juul, head of No Fat Ego and producer of Martin Scorsese's recent films, said the project first captured his interest after learning about Adidas's early support of Jesse Owens, the legendary Black American athlete.
Owens famously wore Adidas's innovative spiked shoes during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he became a symbol of excellence and defiance in an event Adolf Hitler had intended to showcase Aryan supremacy.
Juul emphasized that the production team aims to maintain full editorial independence before presenting the series to streaming platforms.
'We want to have the creative control, and Mark has to have absolute silence and quiet to do what he does,' Juul told AFP.
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