‘Peaky Blinders’ Movie Is Officially in the Works at Netflix: See Who’s Returning
Written by Rtradio on June 4, 2024
Thomas Shelby is back. On Tuesday, Netflix announced that Cillian Murphy is returning to the world of Peaky Blinders in a film adaptation of the streamer’s acclaimed series.
“It seems like Tommy Shelby wasn’t finished with me…It is very gratifying to be recollaborating with Steven Knight and Tom Harper on the film version of Peaky Blinders. This is one for the fans,” Murphy declared in a statement shared to Netflix’s X page (formerly Twitter).
Director Tom Harper will helm the feature, a reunion between Harper and Murphy after the filmmaker helmed episodes of the show’s first season in 2013.
“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. 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,” Harper added in a statement.
Peaky Blinders ran for six seasons from 2013 through 2022.
Created by Steven Knight and based on true events, the British gangster drama starred Murphy as mobster Thomas Shelby, who returns to Birmingham after World War I.
It’s a special return for Murphy, who earned his first Academy Award for his starring role as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer — the theoretical physicist credited as the “father of the atomic bomb” — in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
Murphy also won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for his groundbreaking role. Plus, the star-studded Oppenheimer cast — which also includes Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Kenneth Branagh and more — won ensemble awards at both the SAG and Critics Choice Awards.
The actor opened up to ET about his experience making the film in an interview last summer, prior to the record-breaking “Barbenheimer” opening weekend.
“The extraordinary thing about the script was it’s written in the first person, which is the first time I’d ever encountered that,” Murphy shared of his first impression. “You realize then this is something different. They made this very clever thing in the movie — the Oppenheimer sequences are in color, and then the Strauss sequences are in black and white. So it’s kind of subjective-objective, and that’s just amazing.”
Downey referred to Murphy’s transformation in the film as a “heroic effort,” but Murphy humbly attributed his portrayal to the “safe environment” Nolan created for his actors on set.
“He creates this really kind of like a laboratory, where you can just try stuff out and he just lets you off,” he explained. “And the other thing is, I was thinking about it, no scene ever gets left behind, do you know what I mean? No scene is less than another.”
Knight penned the film continuation of Peaky Blinders, and will co-produce alongside Murphy, Caryn Mandabach and Guy Heeley. Executive producers include Harper, David Kosse, Jamie Glazebrook, Andrew Warren and David Mason.
Although plot details and further casting are still under wraps, the film is currently slated to begin production later this year, and will be made in association with BBC Film.
Last year, Knight told fans that he had plans to expand the Peaky Blinders franchise beyond a series and the forthcoming film that was then in development.
“We could never have predicted how much this series about Birmingham gangsters in the ’20s and ’30s would resonate,” Knight said during his speech at the 2023 TRIC Awards, where Peaky Blinders won the Drama Award. “Some things just seem to have momentum and luck, and they stick, and everyone working on them feels that. What is coming next? It’s to be announced. But it’s not the end.”
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