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It's a Holy War in Focus Features' First Trailer for Catholic Thriller Conclave
The pope is dead, a new pope must be chosen, and secrets are about to be revealed.
When a pope dies, the Catholic leaders who make up the College of Cardinals assemble in the Vatican for what's known as a Papal Conclave. It's one of the most-watched and most high-stakes events in world news when it happens, but because of the sequestered nature of the proceedings, what actually goes on behind closed doors is still a matter of great mystery.
That's where Conclave comes in. Based on the novel by Robert Harris and directed by Oscar winner Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front), the new film takes place in an imagined modern Conclave after the death of a pope, and follows what happens when the men tasked with selecting the next leader of an entire faith stumble upon secrets that could change everything.
In the first trailer for the film (shown below), released today by Focus Features, we meet Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), who's tasked with overseeing a new Conclave amid tragedy and suspicion after the death of the pope. His colleagues, Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) and Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow), work to impress upon Lawrence not just the importance of this particular election, but the dangers of it.
Check Out the First Trailer for Focus Features' Conclave
As the trailer shows, the College of Cardinals is a place filled with ambition and potential deceit, particularly when the pope's cause of death is under question. As the Cardinals assemble, and seal themselves in the Sistine Chapel to pick a new pope, Lawrence is caught in the middle of what Bellini calls "a war" for the future of the church, a fight that only gets more complicated as buried secrets come to light.
The trailer is certainly exciting, and carries with it a certain sense of blending the styles of stories like The Two Popes (a historical drama) with The Da Vinci Code (a thriller full of imagined conspiracies) into something new. It'll be really interesting to see how Peter Straughan's (Wolf Hall) screenplay brings Harris' novel to the big screen. But what we're most excited to see is this amazing cast, which also incudes Isabelle Rossellini, gather together in one of the world's grandest settings for a conspiracy thriller like no other.
Conclave is in theaters this November from Focus Features and Universal Pictures.
