The famed summer saga Zodiaque, a true ratings juggernaut of the 2000s, is making its big return on TF1, twenty years later.
There was David Fincher’s Zodiac in 2007, a monumental cinema masterpiece revisiting the real Zodiac killer who terrorized the San Francisco area in the 1960s and ’70s. But before that Zodiac, France had its own Zodiaque on TF1 in 2004. This summer saga led by Claire Keim and Francis Huster was a genuine television phenomenon, drawing 11.1 million viewers for its premiere episode—a record at the time for a summer serial, since surpassed by Dolmen.
On average, the first season amassed about 10.8 million loyal viewers, and, inevitably, given the success, TF1 commissioned a sequel, Le Maître du Zodiaque, broadcast in 2006. With an average of 8.1 million viewers, the follow-up was smaller in scope but still well above the competition. Now, twenty years on, the new installment, simply titled Zodiaque and once again featuring Francis Huster, finally has a premiere date on TF1.
zodiaque 2.0
No surprises about the return of the summer saga, since TF1 had announced rebooting Zodiaque in 2024. However, in recent days, the release of the trailer for this new season may have taken viewers on TF1 by surprise. Indeed, with this trailer, TF1 rushed to reveal the air date for its summer series. Thus, the first two episodes will air on June 18 in prime time. In total, the miniseries will consist of six episodes.
It is overseen by Malina Detcheva and Franck Ollivier (the duo behind the 2004 version of Zodiaque), and the plot will be, more or less, in line with the previous two seasons (a duo will hunt the Zodiac killer back, or the impersonator who mimics his methods) except that this time it will unfold in 2026, hence the slightly different means of communication available to the killer. That is at least what the synopsis makes clear:
« In Provence, the powerful Escoffier family is struck again, twenty years later, by murders signed by the Zodiac, a serial killer everyone believed gone. The killer announces each murder with a quatrain from Nostradamus, sent to Garance Lombardi’s smartphone.»
In the trailer (which has not been officially released), nothing particularly groundbreaking stands out beyond the groundwork of the investigation that promises another avalanche of twists, murders, and betrayals. The series is directed by Bruno Garcia (Brocéliande). The ensemble surrounding Francis Huster is fairly imposing, featuring familiar TF1 faces such as Marine Delterme (the renowned Alice Nevers from the eponymous series) and Lannick Gautry (central to the summer soap Le Mystère du Lac in 2015 or the series Tout pour la lumière in 2025).
Erika Sainte will also appear as Garance Lombardi (the female lead), alongside Zoï Severin (Ici tout commence), Catherine Marchal, and Philypa Phoenix. For nostalgia buffs, Claire Keim will not be returning. The question now is whether TF1 can deliver blockbuster ratings with this Zodiac continuation. In the age of streaming and on-demand viewing (and given that the series has already aired in full in Belgium and Switzerland), linear ratings are far from guaranteed. The first verdict arrives on June 18.
