Anthony Bourdain’s suicide, in June, prompted a reservoir of grief seldom displayed for a cultural figure, no less one from the culinary world. But though Bourdain is gone, his show is going on. This fall, CNN will air the twelfth and final season of Parts Unknown, Bourdain’s hit travel and food program that premiered in 2013. And after that, the celebrated chef, raconteur, and globe-trotting television host will return once more, this time on the big screen.

CNN tells me it is in pre-production on a documentary film about Bourdain’s life and work, in collaboration with Zero Point Zero, the production company behind Bourdain’s television series. The film, billed as “the definitive Bourdain feature documentary,” is projected to hit screens as early as 2019—first on the festival circuit, then with a theatrical release, and eventually on CNN, a rollout that the network has employed with other documentaries. It’s still early days, so details are scant, but Amy Entelis, CNN’s executive vice president for talent and content, told me the decision to make a Bourdain film was simple. “As well as we knew Tony,” she said, “because he did reveal himself in the series, there was still a hunger to know more about him, and to honor his work and celebrate him. The documentary format became one of the more obvious ways to go.”

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CNN Films has acquired or commissioned nearly 40 films since the division was created in 2012, as CNN was exploring ways to breathe new life into the network’s lineup, and shake it out of a years-long slump. Documentary-style programming was a way to give viewers something different outside of the standard hard-news talking-head format, especially on weekend evenings when people are most in the market for escapist appointment viewing. Parts Unknown, which airs on Sunday nights, was the most prolific, and arguably the most buzzworthy, result of this strategy, which has also created hit documentaries such as Blackfish and Glenn Campbell, both ratings wins. RBG, the hit Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary that CNN Films co-produced, is about to get its CNN debut on September 3.

If the worldwide outpouring that followed Bourdain’s suicide is any indication, the as-yet-unnamed Bourdain documentary will likewise find a large audience when it lands on CNN. But the ultimate goal is more earnest. “We just want to make it perfect,” said Entelis. “We want to make it exquisite for Tony. We want to do him justice.”