CBS Studios is betting Germans still love David Hasselhoff. The production arm of US broadcaster CBS is venturing into local-language programming abroad, and one of its first projects is a dark comedy starring Mr. Hasselhoff that will debut next year on TV now, a video-on-demand platform that is a unit of Germany’s Mediengruppe RTL. “Ze Network,” which initiates production in July, will feature Mr. Hasselhoff playing a version of himself that is fictionalized-who comes from Germany to do a play and ends up getting caught up in a post-Cold War spy story. The show will be in German and English and distributed outside of Germany as well. “It will either be a massive hit world-wide or a massive flop, “ Mr. Hasselhoff stated in an interview. “I know it will be a hit in Germany.”“Ze Network” is one of a few projects CBS Studios has in the works overseas as a plan hatched in 2017 that is starting to pay dividends. It also has deals to create a series in the Netherlands , Scandinavia, Africa, Australia and Israel.