HBO commissions Season 4 of True Detective; Oscar-winning actress Jodie Foster to lead the cast

HBO has given the official nod to a new season of True Detective. The upcoming fourth installment has been titled True Detective: The Night Country with Academy Award winner Jodie Foster leading the exciting cast. Barry Jenkins of Moonlight fame and Mexican writer-producer Issa Lopez will be serving as the new season's executive producers.

American Professional boxer Kali Reis has been cast as the other lead in the show, with Reis playing the role of Detective Evangaline Navarro. This will be the boxer's maiden TV project after having made her acting debut with the 2021 thriller film Catch the Fair One.

“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 (Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Reis) will have to confront the darkness they carry in themselves, and dig into the haunted truths that lie buried under the eternal ice,” reads the synopsis of True Detective: The Night Country.

Issa López, along with being the executive producer, will also be serving as the showrunner, writer, producer, and director. She would be taking over the reins from Nic Pizzolatto who is credited as the creator of the True Detective anthology, along with being the main writer for the first three installments (along with Graham Grody, David Milch, and Scott Lasser) who set the trademark grim, noir-ish tone. Pizzolatto is said to have been initially working on a storyline for the potential fourth season but ended up signing a new first-look deal with FX Productions, compelling HBO to take a new direction for the fourth installment.

True Detective has been a successful anthology mini-series that first premiered in 2014. The Season 1 of the show saw two bonafide Hollywood movie stars in the form of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson play the leads and lend the TV series a global status. The success of the first season can also be seen as a watershed moment for American TV which later saw a sudden influx of movie talent, including the likes of Colin Farrel, Kevin Spacey, Nicole Kidman, Billy Bob Thornton, etc. gravitating more towards author-backed roles on television.