HBO has today announced the premiere date for the upcoming original series The New Pope - a follow-up to the 2017 series The Young Pope.
The nine-episode season will launch on Monday, January 13 at 9/8c.
Picking up where The Young Pope left off, Lenny Belardo - known as Pope Pius XIII - is in a coma. Following an unpredictable and mysterious turn of events, Secretary of State Voiello succeeds in having Sir John Brannox, a charming and sophisticated moderate English aristocrat, placed on the papal throne, adopting the name John Paul III. The new pope seems ideal, but he conceals secrets and has a certain fragility, and Voiello immediately understands that it will not be easy to replace the charismatic Pius XIII. Hanging between life and death, Lenny Belardo has become a Saint, with thousands now idolizing him, fueling the contrast between fundamentalisms. Meanwhile, the Church is under attack from external threats and scandals striking the symbols of Christianity and risking irreversibly devastating the hierarchies. As always, however, in the Vatican, nothing is what it seems. Good and evil proceed arm-in-arm towards history, and to reach the showdown, we must wait for the events to take their course.
The series stars Jude Law, John Malkovich, Silvio Orlando, Javier Cámara, Cécile de France, Ludivine Sagnier, Maurizio Lombardi, Henry Goodman, Ulrich Thomsen, Mark Ivanir, Yuliya Snigir and Massimo Ghini.
Paolo Sorrentino, Umberto Contarello and Stefano Bises wrote the series, with Sorrentino directing all nine episodes. They executive produce with Law, Lorenzo Mieli, Mario Gianani, Riccardo Neri, Elena Recchia, Caroline Benjo, Carole Scotta, Simon Arnal, Jaume Roures, Javier Méndez, Nils Hartmann and Sonia Roval. Fremantle produces in association with HBO, Sky and Canal+.
