My Brilliant Friend has earned a fourth season order from HBO and Rai. The popular dramatic series kicked off its third season – My Brilliant Friend: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay – on February 28, 2022 and will wrap up on April 18th. HBO’s announcement didn’t indicate when fans can expect the fourth season to debut.
HBO and Rai confirmed season four will be based on Elena Ferrante’s fourth and final book of the Neapolitan Novels, My Brilliant Friend: The Story Of The Lost Child. Saverio Costanzo created the HBO-Rai series.
“When we decided to bring Elena Ferrante’s masterpiece Neapolitan Novels to the screen, we knew Elena and Lila’s story had to be told in its entirety. It’s both thrilling and bittersweet to embark on this fourth and final season. We’re deeply grateful to the entire creative team led by Saverio Costanzo and Lorenzo Mieli, and to our season 3 director Daniele Luchetti. We look forward to completing the quartet and know The Story of the Lost Child will bring the series to a close with the same heart, intimacy, and epic storytelling that has defined Elena and Lila’s journey from the beginning,” said Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President, HBO Programming.
“My Brilliant Friend is an asset that has proven the success of our production partnership with HBO Entertainment, Fandango, Fremantle, The Apartment and Wildside. What lies behind this success is the precious opportunity offered by Elena Ferrante’s four Neapolitan Novels and the realistic, exciting and originally Italian imagery that has brought to life the audio-visual transposition of the friendship between Lila and Lenù. This mix between a strongly characterized environment, marked first of all by the dialect, then by its humanity and by the emotions heightened through the power of a female friendship, has proved to be a driving force for seriality, as well as a showcase for the creativity and expertise of Italy’s audio-visual industry,” said Maria Pia Ammirati, Director of Rai Fiction. “Our aim is to maximize this in the wake of a now well-established cooperation full of prospects.”
HBO released the following description of the series and of season three:
My Brilliant Friend is the tale of Elena Greco and the most important friend in her life. She met Raffaella Cerullo, whom she has always called Lila, in the first year of primary school in 1950. Set in a dangerous and fascinating Naples, their story goes on to cover more than 60 years of their lives and explores the mystery of Lila, Elena’s brilliant friend and – in a way – both her best friend and her worst enemy.
Starring Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace, season three follows Elena and Lila, both now grown women, during the great open sea of the 1970s. Lila took her young son and left her husband and a comfortable life to work as a factory worker in the toughest of conditions, while Elena left the neighborhood to study in Pisa, and is now an author of a successful novel that has paved the way to an affluent and cultivated world. They now navigate a scenario of hopes and uncertainties, still united by their strong and ambivalent bond.
