'The White Lotus' Has Been Renewed For Season 4 — This Is Everything We Know
The White Lotus has been renewed for a fourth season just weeks before the hotly-anticipated third season of the satirical series returns to the small screen.
The social satire, which is the brainchild of Mike White, tells the story of a group of privileged holidaymakers who descend upon the fictional five-star White Lotus resorts. The glaring socio-economic disparities between those who work at the luxury resort and those who can afford to stay engenders an unavoidable tension that makes for a entirely compelling viewing, which is perhaps part of the reason that, across its first two seasons, The White Lotus won a total of 15 Emmys, including for outstanding limited series for its first outing.
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The third season, will is executive produced by White, David Bernad and Mark Kamine, premieres on February 16. It's set in Thailand and is expected to explore death, Eastern religion, and spirituality, although the third series' exact storylines have been kept closely under wraps.
One thing's for sure about The White Lotus — it promises the holiday of an absolute lifetime (even if not in the way that you may have expected), so the news of a fourth season will come as music to fans of the series' ears. Here's everything we know about The White Lotus season four.
What will The White Lotus season four plot focus on?
It is unclear where the fourth season will take place, or what the satirical plot will explore, White has already pitched ideas to Casey Bloys, the HBO and Max chief revealed in November.
In November 2024, Bloys, who remained tight-lipped about exact details of the fourth series, told reporters: 'Mike, obviously — if he wants to move forward and do the four seasons — he will do the fourth season.'
White has also spoken previously of how future seasons may not start with a dead body. 'I don’t think it needs to always be a body,' he told The Hollywood Reporter in May 2023. 'There are so many ways that we want to reinvent the show each year. Like, what is this show — other than people? A fresh mystery, people maybe expect that. But I don’t feel constrained by expectation. It’s fun.'
Who will make up The White Lotus season four cast?
The beauty of The White Lotus is that each series comes with a different cast, which lends itself perfectly to the societal topics that White plots to explore within the story of the show. While little is known about the potential cast for its fourth season, White has previously hinted at being open to revisiting multiple characters from previous seasons.
In a May 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said, 'If the show goes on for a couple of seasons, it would be fun to have an all-star season,' adding, 'It would be easy to just be full-on anthology, but I think it's more fun to have little threads through the show.'
There have so far only been two recurring characters in the show's tenure. Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) appeared in both the first and second seasons, while Belinda Lindsey (Natasha Rothwell) starred in The White Lotus' inaugural series and will return for its upcoming third outing.
'Mike must have some juicy stuff for her,' Coolidge told The Hollywood Reporter in May 2023 about White's plans for Belinda. 'I think that will be the most interesting storyline of all: whatever's happened to Natasha's character.'
Where will The White Lotus season four be set?
Details of the location of the fourth season of the series have yet to be released, but it has previously been confirmed that Japan was initially scouted as a potential location for the third season, which could mean that it's still on the radar of The White Lotus' team.
At the Tokyo Film Festival 2023, Japanese producer Georgia Pope said (per Deadline), 'The world is in love with Japan. There is a massive global interest in everything Japanese: art, fashion, youth culture, food. And IP such as Anime, Manga, and film.' Pope then confessed to recently having been on a location scouting trip with a 'high profile showrunner,' his producers and studio executives. (Deadline later confirmed the showrunner was Mike White.) 'It was a great scout. We saw some absolutely stunning locations all over Honshu. The showrunner loved it all, and I was feeling very confident that I had it all in the bag,' she said. But, the team ended up going with Thailand, perhaps due to creative decisions, difficulties surrounding filming in Japan, and tax incentives.
The first and second season were set in Hawaii and Sicily, respectively. The third season was filmed in various locations around Thailand.
When will The White Lotus season four be released?
The first season of The White Lotus premiered in July 2021, before the second was released in October 2022. The third season will make its debut on February 16, 2024, although the upcoming series experienced severe delays due to the industry strikes within Hollywood, meaning it bucked the trend of a year-long wait between seasons.
It is understood that The White Lotus' fourth season will begin production in 2026, which means that we may well expect its fourth outing at the end of 2026.
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