Jodie Foster Cast in True Detective Season 4, First Plot Details Released

The next season of HBO’s True Detective just courted a major star. On Thursday, it was announced that Oscar-winning actress and director Jodie Foster will star in and executive produce the long-gestating upcoming fourth season of the series. The Hollywood Reporter claims that Foster joined the project “following a prolonged round of negotiations,” and that the season technically still remains in the development stage, but that Foster’s casting should help greenlight it. Additionally, the reporting revealed the first official details surrounding Season 4, which was previously reported to be subtitled Night Country. 

According to HBO, in True Detective: Night Country, when the long winter night falls in Ennis, Alaska, the six men that operate the Tsalal Arctic Research Station vanish without a trace. To solve the case, Detectives Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro will have to confront the darkness they carry in themselves, and dig into the haunted truths that lie buried under the eternal ice. Foster is expected to play Liz Danvers.

True Detective: Night Country will be co-written by Issa Lopez (Tigers Are Not Afraid, Secondary Effects) and Alan Page Arriaga (Shining Girls, Fear the Walking Dead), with Lopez attached to direct the potential pilot. Executive producers on the project include Lopez, Arraiga, Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski, Mark Ceryak, Mari Jo Winkler, and original True Detective stars and exectuvie producers Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Also listed among the executive producers will be original series creator Nick Pizzolatto and original director Cary Joi Fukunaga, although neither will be creatively involved with the new season.

A fourth season of True Detective has been in the works for quite some time, with Pizzolatto originally planning an idea for Season 4, before HBO shifted gears on the project in 2021. 

“I had this idea, and to me, I think it’s a really strong idea, and it would be something I’ve never seen on television before,” Pizzolatto previously shared with IndieWire. “But since then, I’ve had another idea that I’ve talked about with an actor, and that, to me, would be the most exciting thing we could do with True Detective.”

“I think it would be really great for the fans. I just don’t know if we’re going to get to do it,” Pizzolatto added.

“On True Detective, we’ve been developing various ideas,” HBO exec Casey Bloys previously told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year. “Stay tuned on that one.”

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