The first official photos and details are out for Netflix’s upcoming film continuation of the Idris Elba-led British psychological crime thriller series “Luther”.
Elba reprises his role of Detective Chief Inspector John Luther in the film, which will mark a return to a character that he last played in the show’s fifth season in early 2019.
A film version of the series has been talked about by Elba and creator Neil Cross ever since the first season launched back in 2010. Ultimately four more seasons aired with the show racking up twenty episodes overall.
Speaking with Empire Magazine, Elba says the film will at least partly leave its London setting behind:
“We really peel the onion back here because we had the time and scale to do that. It also gives Neil [Cross] a lot more, you know, Luther-land to play with, in terms of where Luther can go, how he goes, what the landscape is.
We break out of the gritty streets of London, we take it outside of that a little bit, And that’s great. It feels like now we’re entering a different life of the Luther experience.”
Elba also says that despite the shift to the big screen, the film will retain the darker tones of the TV series:
“It’s really dangerous when expanding from television to film, to throw a lot of money at it, and for that moment to change the characteristics of the show. I wanted to make sure that even though we had a bigger budget, [we didn’t] distort the parameters of Luther-land too much. We do amplify the action and do amplify the stakes. But [Season 3’s] man-under-the-bed moment? That don’t cost you much money. Those moments are still intact.”
Andy Serkis and Cynthia Erivo will co-star in the film, with Dermot Crowley returning as DSU Martin Schenk. The film is being penned by Cross, directed by Jamie Payne and was shot in both London and Brussels.
More photos are up at Empire Online.
