PASADENA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Many decades ago, a young Carl Sagan daydreamed on the rug of a tenement, envisioning something quite unique for someone so young: a drawing filled with a boy’s dreams of the Space Age and interstellar exploration. A world-renowned visionary, Sagan lived those dreams and shared them with the world in COSMOS: A Personal Voyage, sparking the most beloved science franchise in television history. Now, 40 years after it was introduced to a global audience, this epic voyage reaches new heights of adventure with the highly anticipated third season, COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS.
Beginning Monday, March 9, at 8/7 c on National Geographic, COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS, helmed by Sagan’s collaborator, Ann Druyan, boldly carries the torch forward, making this season the most ambitious yet. In its endless quest for knowledge, the newest season of COSMOS delivers its signature, fact-based storytelling, painlessly conveying complex scientific concepts to the viewer. These thought-provoking adventures celebrate the possibilities of humanity in our universe. The season features time travel to past eras, revealing unsung scientific heroes who sacrificed everything in the pursuit of scientific revelation. It transports the viewer to a hidden place where life may have begun on Earth, to some of the lost worlds of our ancestors and to the possible worlds of our remote descendants.
Druyan was awarded the Emmy and Peabody, for her writing and producing of Season 2, COSMOS: A SPACETIME ODYSSEY, which she led with Brannon Braga (“The Orville,” “Star Trek”). Druyan and Braga teamed up again for COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS, sharing the writing and directing duties, and are rejoined by their Season 2 executive producing partners, Seth MacFarlane (“The Orville,” “Family Guy”), Jason Clark (“The Orville,” “The Long Road Home”), co-executive producer Kara Vallow ("Family Guy," "American Dad!) and Joe Micucci, who produced. World-renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson of the American Museum of Natural History, host of the four-time Emmy-nominated “StarTalk” series and bestselling author (Death by Black Hole, Letters From an Astrophysicist), reprises his role as host and executive science editor.
“COSMOS is much more than a dramatic, cinematic journey; we hope that it will awaken the widest possible global audience to the sacred searching at the heart of science. You will meet new heroes who were willing to give up their lives rather than tell a lie or jeopardize the future,” Druyan explains. “COSMOS: POSSIBILE WORLDS is a vision of the future we can still have if we have the wisdom and the will to act on what the scientists are telling us.”
“COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS continues the eternal search for answers about ourselves in the universe,” Tyson says. “The series explores the interwoven tapestry that is life on Earth and calls on us to remember this truth as we collectively build the future of civilization.”
“The importance of our species’ continued investment in the enterprise of science cannot be overstated. As we strive toward a deeper understanding of the universe around us, I am honored to play a small role in the elevation of that passion, as a part of the COSMOS producing team,” says executive producer MacFarlane, who also voices President Truman in the series.
This season is the popular franchise’s most aspiring, having filmed 13 episodes across 19 locations in 11 countries and incorporating more than a thousand talented individuals across all crafts, including voice actors, to transport viewers to distant stars and unknown frontiers.
The creative corps of craftspeople include Emmy-nominated cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub (“Independence Day,” “Stargate”); Academy Award-winning and Emmy-nominated costume designer Ruth E. Carter (“Black Panther,” “Roots”); Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated composer Alan Silvestri (“The Avengers,” “Forrest Gump,” “Contact”); VFX supervisor Jeff Okun (“Clash of the Titans,” “Blood Diamond”); and supervising animation directors Lucas Gray (“The Simpsons,” “Family Guy”), Emmy-nominated Brent Woods (“American Dad!,” “Family Guy”) and Academy Award-nominated Duke Johnson (“Anomalisa,” “Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole”).
Among the many actors whose voices are heard throughout the season are Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actor Sir Patrick Stewart (“Star Trek,” “X-Men”) as German-born, British astronomer William Herschel; Academy Award-nominated Viggo Mortensen (“The Green Book,” “The Lord of the Rings”) as Soviet plant geneticist Nikolai Vavilov; and Judd Hirsch (“A Beautiful Mind,” “Independence Day”) as Robert Oppenheimer, famously known as the “Father of the Atomic Bomb.” Sasha Sagan, Druyan and Sagan’s daughter, appears in a recurring live-action role as Sagan’s mother, Rachel Gruber Sagan.
COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS airs from 8-10 PM ET for seven weeks beginning March 9, in the US, and it will air globally in 171 countries and 43 languages and on FOX this summer. The previous season was seen by more than 135 million people worldwide.
Timed with the premiere of the new season, National Geographic Books is publishing a companion book, Cosmos: Possible Worlds (on sale: Feb. 25, 2020 | ISBN: 978-1426219085) by Druyan, the long-awaited follow-up to Sagan’s international bestseller, Cosmos.
COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS is produced for National Geographic and FOX by Cosmos Studios, the company Druyan co-founded in 2000, and MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door. Druyan and Braga are the series’ writers and directors. Druyan, MacFarlane, Braga and Clark executive produce. Kara Vallow (“Family Guy,” “American Dad!”) co-executive produces, and Joseph Micucci (“Patriots Day,” “Ted 2”) produces. For National Geographic, Kevin Mohs is executive producer and Geoff Daniels is EVP of global unscripted entertainment.
“Like” COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS on Facebook at CosmosOnTV. Follow the series on Twitter @CosmosOnTV. See photos and videos on Instagram by following @CosmosOnTV.
About National Geographic
National Geographic Partners LLC (NGP), a joint venture between the National Geographic Society and Disney, is committed to bringing the world premium science, adventure and exploration content across an unrivaled portfolio of media assets. NGP combines the global National Geographic television channels (National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO, Nat Geo PEOPLE) with National Geographic’s media and consumer-oriented assets, including National Geographic magazines; National Geographic studios; related digital and social media platforms; books; maps; children’s media; and ancillary activities that include travel, global experiences and events, archival sales, licensing and e-commerce businesses. Furthering knowledge and understanding of our world has been the core purpose of National Geographic for 132 years, and now we are committed to going deeper, pushing boundaries, going further for our consumers … and reaching millions of people around the world in 172 countries and 43 languages every month as we do it. NGP returns 27 percent of our proceeds to the nonprofit National Geographic Society to fund work in the areas of science, exploration, conservation and education. For more information visit natgeotv.com or nationalgeographic.com, or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
About Cosmos Studios
Co-founded in 2000 by CEO and visionary Ann Druyan, Ithaca, NY-based Cosmos Studios creates, produces, and distributes eye, brain, heart and soul-nourishing science-based entertainment in all media. Cosmos Studios aims to tear down the walls that have excluded so many from the scientific enterprise. We work to demystify the language, values, and drama of science, to give everyone the power of its permanently revolutionary methodology. Carl Sagan, and those privileged to work with him, demonstrated that there is a world-wide appetite for compelling entertainment that reflects our dawning awareness of cosmic evolution and our place in its great story. There is a planet-wide hunger for images and dreams that reflect our radically altered sense of who, where and when we are … where we might go, who we might become. In collaboration with award-winning writers, artists, filmmakers, producers, researchers, engineers, educators, artists, and a growing list of partners across science, communications, and finance, we seek to touch audiences with the soaring spiritual high that comes from grasping science’s central revelation — our oneness with the cosmos.
Come with us at www.cosmosstudios.com
on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CosmosStudiosOfficial/
on Twitter at https://twitter.com/cosmosstudios
on Instagram at www.instagram.com/cosmosstudiosofficial/
About Fuzzy Door
Led by writer, producer and director Seth MacFarlane and president Erica Huggins, Fuzzy Door is the production company behind many of today’s most successful film and television projects. With potent irreverence, biting satire, rule-breaking humor, compelling social issues and engaging storytelling, it has created an enviable portfolio of award-winning properties. Currently, the company produces the Hulu space adventure series “The Orville”; the beloved and Emmy-winning animated comedy series “Family Guy,” which is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary; and the fan-favorite series “American Dad!,” now airing its 14th season. Fuzzy Door strategically built on the success of the 1980’s “Cosmos” series by producing the award-winning “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” which garnered 13 Emmy nominations and was seen by more than 135 million people worldwide, and is gearing up for the next installment, COSMOS: POSSIBLE WORLDS, set to air in 2020. On the film side, Fuzzy Door has created several commercially successful comedies, such as “Ted,” “Ted 2” and “A Million Ways to Die in the West,” which have collectively grossed more than $800 million at the worldwide box office. The company is committed to weaving a socially conscious and intellectually curious thread through projects to bring fearless, innovative and bold stories to life, while maintaining its trademark sense of humor and wonder.
