Miniseries set on Pope John Paul II

It may not outdo “The Da Vinci Code” for sheer thrills, but CBS’ programming chief says the network’s miniseries about Pope John Paul II promises to be “a papal page-turner.”

Speaking Tuesday at the semiannual Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills, CBS entertainment President Nina Tassler told reporters she had just finished reading the script for the first of two planned episodes dramatizing the life of the Polish-born pontiff, who died in April at age 84.

The network has not set a date for the premiere of the miniseries, which will star Ian Holm as the elderly pope and Cary Elwes as the young Karol Wojtyla, who became John Paul II in 1978.

CBS said last month that the Vatican would cooperate with the project.

Tassler -- whose boss, Viacom Co-president and Co-chief Operating Officer Leslie Moonves, had a rare absence from the press tour due to a corporate scheduling conflict -- said the movie will set Wojtyla’s spiritual journey against the Nazi attack on Poland in 1939 and other dramatic events.

“It tracks, in a very personal and emotional way, how he got his calling,” Tassler said. “It’s a papal page-turner.”

In fact, compared to CBS’ other planned movies, the papal miniseries sounds fairly sober-minded.

As the only broadcast network that still carves out a weekly slot on its schedule for made-for-TV movies, CBS has had some success by moving away slightly from family-oriented or women-in-trouble dramas in favor of thrillers or biographies that can be summed up in a single phrase, such as “Spring Break Shark Attack” in March.

CBS, the No. 1 network in total viewers, is hoping such movies will attract younger viewers, although Tassler stressed that the network remains committed to broadcasting to as large an audience as possible.

The season promises more in a similar vein.

The network announced premiere dates for “Martha Behind Bars” (Sept. 25), with Cybill Shepherd as imprisoned domestic diva Martha Stewart; “The Hunt for the BTK Strangler” (Oct. 9), a ripped-from-the-headlines story of the notorious serial killer; “Vampire Bats” (Oct. 30), a horror tale starring Lucy Lawless; and “Category 7: The End of the World” (Nov. 6), a sequel to the network’s disaster flick “Category 6: Day of Destruction.”

When asked whether the pope’s life was being sensationalized, Tassler quickly noted the Vatican’s cooperation and that the network was working with the same producers who created “Jesus,” the popular and well-received biblical miniseries that aired in 2000.