The screenplay is based on an article written by Ron Jones in which he talks about the experiment and how he remembers it . The rights to the story which belonged to Sony were given over to Dennis Gansel for the production of a German movie . As a consequence , Morton Rhue whose novel popularized the material in Germany and the publisher Ravensburg did not receive direct revenues from the film project . Gansel was working on the book for one year until he asked Peter Thorwarth to join him as a co-author . The screenplay moves the experiment , which was carried out in California in the 1960s , to present day Germany . The specific location is never mentioned explicitly as it stands for Germany as a whole . Gansel explained that he did not intend to reenact Jones ’ experiment , but rather show how it would be carried out in present day Germany . He said the movie is not an adaption and that he changed characters , dialogues as well as the beginning and ending of the movie . This also includes subsidiary aspects such as the football team which was turned into a water polo team in the German version whose coach , as opposed to the original , is the teacher himself . The major difference , however , concerns the physical violence and the bloody end which became part of the movie . Nonetheless , Gansel claimed in an interview that it was extremely important to him to ensure that his movie would not differ as much from the experiment as Rhue ’s book . Thereby he described Jones , who supported the film project as a counselor , as a " living certificate of authenticity “ and that the ending was inspired by the Emsdetten school shooting . He claimed that Jones does not like the way the characters in Rhue ’s novel are depicted . The former teacher commented that Gansel ’s movie gave an " incredibly convincing “ account of the actual experiment
Emsdetten school shooting
Emsdetten school shooting
The Wave (2008 film)