Italian director Paolo Sorrentino,
winner of this year's foreign-language Oscar for The Great
Beauty, will write and direct his first TV series, about an
imaginary pontiff who becomes the first Italian-American pope in
history.
Working-titled The Young Pope, the eight-episode series in
50-minute format aimed at the international market will be
co-produced by Lorenzo Mieli and Mario Gianani's Wildside and
Rupert Murdoch's Sky Italia pay TV, which will air the show in
Italy.
US producer John Lyons, the former president of production
at Focus Features, is executive producing.
The series is written by Sorrentino along with his Great
Beauty writing partner Umberto Contarello and veteran Italian
film and TV screenwriter Stefano Rulli.
The story to be played by an international cast will be set
in contemporary Africa, Italy, the Vatican, and the US.
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