As Gary Puckett & The Union Gap once sang, “Young Pope, get out of my mind /
My love for you is way out of line.” Or something like that. Regardless, Paolo Sorrentino, the writer/director of Jude Law’s upcoming HBO series The Young Pope, clearly has Young Pope fever. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he’s already hard at work on the script for the show’s second season, even though its first has yet to debut.
The Young Pope—which launches internationally this month but won’t premiere in America until early next year—stars Law as a fictional American pope who is “outrageously conservative” and “hell-bent” on changing up the Vatican. He’s a chain-smoking anti-hero who employs Diane Keaton’s Sister Mary as one of his advisors and looks to James Cromwell’s Cardinal Michael Spencer for mentorship. And the first two episodes of the 10-part series got good reviews when they debuted at the Venice Film Festival last month.
News of a potential second season comes from Wildside producer Lorenzo Mieli at the show’s Rome premiere. The Italian company developed the series and received co-funding from HBO, Sky, and Canal Plus. With a $45 million budget, The Young Pope is Italy’s most expensive TV production ever. And although nothing is official yet, Wildside plans to once again bring the second season to its producing partners for funding. According to THR, Sky Italia chief of content Andrea Scrosati clarified, “We are of course hoping to do it, but nothing is signed yet.”