“Gomorrah,” the gritty Neapolitan mob series that became Italy’s biggest TV export, is back — albeit in a different time frame.
Shooting is set to start in early 2025 in Naples on “Gomorrah – The Series. The Origins,” the hit crime drama’s previously announced origin story that will be directed by Marco D’Amore, the actor who played ruthless central character Ciro Di Marzio on the show.
D’Amore, who previously helmed several episodes of the series as well as a prequel feature film to “Gomorrah” titled “The Immortal” – and subsequently further honed his behind-the-camera chops directing Naples-set movies “Napoli Magica” and “Caracas” – officially announced on Tuesday that he will lead-direct this new project in a video to which Variety has been given exclusive access.
“Today I’m here to tell you that we will finally explore the saga’s origins,” D’Amore says in the video, which can be viewed above. He underlines that, just like the hyper-realistic original, this six-episode “Gomorrah” prequel will be firmly “rooted in reality.”
The “Gomorrah” origin story will recount the rise of mobster Pietro Savastano in the 1970s, when the Neapolitan criminal underworld was pervasive but less cutthroat — more tied to selling contraband cigarettes than large amounts of drugs — as the show’s lead producer Riccardo Tozzi, chief of ITV-owned Cattleya, had previously revealed.
“‘Gomorrah – The Series’ has now taken on a mythological profile,” Tozzi said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that they “had many doubts about touching this inimitable subject again.”
“But the idea that formed within the creative group at the origin of the series, together with one of its leads, Marco, seemed so simple and strong that it convinced us to start again,” Tozzi added.
“In a Naples of yesteryear, the young Pietro does not know that he will become Savastano, nor does Imma, nor does the group of unaware and full of life young people who accompany the beginning of his criminal adventure,” Tozzi went on to explain.
Said Nils Hartmann, EVP Sky Studios Italy: “I am very happy that a talent whom I admire as both an actor and a director is returning to be part of the Gomorrah family — after having been a protagonist.”
Hartmann added, “We have shared this adventure with Marco from the beginning, and I am certain that his vision will bring valuable energy to a new and unprecedented chapter of the saga. Telling the story of Pietro Savastano’s adolescence in the prequel will be an exciting and highly ambitious challenge. All of this makes me proud, and I can’t wait to see the first clapperboard snap.”
Leonardo Fasoli and Maddalena Ravagli, who were among the writers of the original “Gomorrah” saga, have been working on the script together with D’Amore, who also serves as artistic supervisor, as well as Roberto Saviano, who wrote the bestselling Neapolitan mob exposé on which the series is based.
Some episodes of the series will be directed by regular D’Amore collaborator Francesco Ghiaccio.
Casting of the prequel has not yet been announced, but is expected to involve the use of young rising local talents, some possibly being non-professionals.
“Gomorrah,” which launched on Sky in 2014, brought audiences inside the belly of the real Neapolitan criminal underworld, thanks in part to being shot almost entirely in the actual places it portrays. Besides attaining megahit status in Italy, “Gomorrah” has traveled to 190 countries, including on HBO Max in the U.S.
Just like the original, “Gomorrah – The Series. The Origins” is being produced by Sky Studios and Cattleya, which is part of ITV Studios, and will be sold internationally by Beta Film.