Mark Burnett and Roma Downey’s new religious drama ‘Messiah’ has been ordered to series by Netflix following reports of its development back as early as March of this year.
The series will consist of ten hour long episodes exploring the lines among religion, faith and politics.
The series was created by writer Michael Petroni who was instrumental in helping Burnett manufacture a deal with Netflix. Both Petroni and Burnett will executive produce the series along with Roma Downet, Andrew Deane, and James McTeigue who will direct the series.
The series is expected to be released on the streaming service in 2019.
Speaking about the project, Vice-President of original content for Netflix, Cindy Holland said:
“Messiah’ promises to be a fascinating series for viewers of every faith, and a thrilling drama filled with multi-layered characters set on a global stage.”
The series will chronicle the modern world’s reaction to a man who first appears in the Middle East creating a groundswell of followers around him claiming he is the Messiah. In ten hour-long episodes, the story unfolds from multiple points of view, including a young CIA agent, an Israeli Shin Bet officer, a Latino preacher and his Texan daughter, a Palestinian refugee and the media, among others.
Speaking about the new show, Downey and Burnett said:
“‘Messiah’ is a series that will have the audience asking big questions. What if someone showed up in 2018 amid strange occurrences and was thought to be the Messiah? What would society do? How would the media cover him? Would millions simply quit work? Could government’s collapse? It’s a series that could change everything.”
Downey and Burnett have a track record of successful religion-based projects having previously collaborated on the History Channel miniseries ‘The Bible’, TV movie ‘Women of the Bible’ for Lifetime, ‘A.D. The Bible Continues’ on NBC, and ‘The Dovekeepers’ for CBS. Burnett is also responsible for TV hit shows such as ‘Survivor,’ ‘The Apprentice’, and ‘Shark Tank’.