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LONDON – It is looking good for fans of hard-hitting British cop drama Luther, starring Idris Elba, with a possible big-screen outing coming into focus.
With the BBC TV show created by Neil Cross ending after three seasons and the team ruling out more TV outings — Elba was a producer as well as the show’s star — there is now talk of a movie version.
Cross has told British media that he is aiming to get a movie version made next year, having written a script as a prequel detailing how Elba’s character, John Luther, ends up the dark, conflicted and hardened detective in the TV show.
The show creator said his script follows the detective’s career in the earlier days, when he is still married to Zoe, and the final scene in the film is the first of the initial TV series.
The writer has already penned a prequel novel of sorts, The Calling, which focuses on a traumatic case involving a child killer and culminates in the detective receiving a seven-month suspension.
Cross told the Edinburgh International Television Festival last week that the TV show was finished because Elba is now an established movie star.
He plays Nelson Mandela in the upcoming biopic Long Walk To Freedom.
Earlier this year, Elba said he wanted to make a Luther film at a BAFTA preview for the third series, which aired on the BBC here and BBC America stateside earlier this year.
“We do want a new audience, but we also want to keep the fans interested, so we have to tread very carefully,” Elba said at the BAFTA event.
The 40-year-old won a Golden Globe for best actor in a mini-series for his role in Luther, which made its debut on BBC One in 2011 and has become popular around the world.
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