Cillian Murphy hasn’t given up Tommy Shelby just yet; the Irish actor, fresh off his best actor Oscar for Oppenheimer, is set to return to Birmingham for a Peaky Blinders movie.
Netflix has officially given the green light to the long-rumored feature film, with Murphy set to star and produce. War & Peace and Heart of Stone director Tom Harper, who helmed the second half of the BBC show’s first season, is set to direct from a script by series creator Steven Knight. Production on the film, made in association with BBC Films, will begin later this year, according to Deadline.
The continuation of the Bafta-winning series, which became a global phenomenon on Netflix, has long been the subject of speculation and hints. Knight had previously told Birmingham World and Deadline that a movie would happen, but this is the first official studio confirmation. Murphy has been open about his enthusiasm to resume his role as the boss of the Shelby crime family.
“If there is more story to tell, and if Steven Knight delivers a script like I know he can, then I will be there,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in February. “I mean, if we want to watch 50-year-old Tommy Shelby, I will be there. Let’s do it.”
Plot details and other casting information are being kept under lock and key, although Knight previously told Deadline that the series finale in 2022 set up a movie to be set in the second world war. The show’s six seasons spanned the end of the first world war through the end of Prohibition in the US.
In a statement to Deadline, Knight promised that the new film will “be an explosive chapter in the Peaky Blinders story. No holds barred. Full-on Peaky Blinders at war.”
Murphy said in a statement: “It seems like Tommy Shelby wasn’t finished with me. It is very gratifying to be re-collaborating with Steven Knight and Tom Harper on the film version of Peaky Blinders. This is one for the fans.”
Peaky Blinders first aired on BBC Two in 2013, before getting picked up by Netflix in 2014, where it gained an global following and launched Murphy to international fame along with co-stars Tom Hardy, Anya Taylor-Joy and the late Helen McCrory. It moved to BBC One in 2019, following a Bafta win for best drama series for its fourth season.
“When I first directed Peaky Blinders over 10 years ago, we didn’t know what the series would become, but we did know that there was something in the alchemy of the cast and the writing that felt explosive,” said Harper in a statement. “Peaky has always been a story about family – and so it’s incredibly exciting to be reuniting with Steve and Cillian to bring the movie to audiences across the world on Netflix.”