Neon Adds Gomorrah in May

Neon will stream the great Italian gangster saga Gomorrah from May 24 — but at this stage it will be only season one.

Sky has yet to confirm when or if the rest of the series will stream but it seems likely given S4 is about to premiere on HBO Max in the US.

“Gomorrah sparked a trend in gritty, real-world storytelling that reshaped Italian TV,” IndieWire reports.

“Beta Film — a company founded to exploit Federico Fellini’s La Strada —  licensed Gomorrah in nearly 200 countries, and it became one of the most successful properties in its history. In Italy, the audience for the Season 4 premiere surpassed that of Game of Thrones.”

The acclaimed series was inspired by the 2008 movie of the same name, which was based on Roberto Saviano’s best-selling “Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organised Crime System”.

Another of Saviano’s books has since been turned into another Neon acquisition, ZeroZeroZero.

HBO Max saw Gomorrah as an opportunity to deepen and distinguish its library — despite S1 screening on the Sundance Channel in the US and Netflix carrying the first two seasons until a year ago.

“We are building strong collaborations as we source distinctive fare from top international partners for our US viewers, also with an eye to the near future when we will look to these partners to supply locally as we expand HBO Max internationally,” said Kevin Reilly, HBO Max’s chief content officer and president of TNT, TBS and TruTV, said when announcing the Gomorrah deal.

In light of the HBO Max/WarnerMedia connection, it seems inevitable S2-4 will follow S1 on Neon in the same manner, with subsequent seasons landing months apart.