It’s been a long time coming amid trickles of information that never were fully confirmed, but the Shelby family faithful can now wholly rejoice as the Peaky Blinders movie is officially moving forward. Netflix has greenlit a feature film that will star Oscar winner Cillian Murphy in a return to the iconic role of the Birmingham clan’s leader Tommy Shelby.
Tom Harper (Heart of Stone, The Aeronauts, War & Peace) is directing the untitled film. Harper is no stranger to Peaky, having helmed the back half of Season 1.
Production is set to begin later this year from a script by Peaky creator Steven Knight. Producers are Caryn Mandabach, Knight, Murphy and Guy Heeley. Exec producers include Harper, David Kosse, Jamie Glazebrook, Andrew Warren and David Mason. The feature will be made in association with BBC Film.
Knight told Birmingham World in March that the movie was going forward with Murphy aboard; he also previously told Deadline a movie was going to happen. Still, this is the first official confirmation with a studio greenlight.
Plot details and further casting are being kept under wraps, although Knight has previously told Deadline a movie story would be set during World War II.
Today, Murphy told Deadline, “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.”
Said Harper, “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.”
Knight added: “I’m genuinely thrilled that this movie is about to happen. It will be an explosive chapter in the Peaky Blinders story. No holds barred. Full-on Peaky Blinders at war.”
A global phenomenon, Peaky began airing in 2013 on BBC Two in the UK, with Netflix joining the fray in 2014. The series made the jump from BBC Two to BBC One in 2019 after its fourth season had won the BAFTA for Best Drama. In total, the show ran for six seasons, culminating in 2022.
At the time, Murphy’s Tommy settled many a score, including killing off his cousin Michael (Finn Cole), and rode off into the sunset on a white steed after handing the reins of the family business to sister Ada (Sophie Rundle).
Prior to winning the Best Actor Academy Award for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in March, the busy Murphy starred in and produced Small Things Like These, which opened this year’s Berlin Film Festival. Concurrently, he launched his production company Big Things Films with Alan Moloney. He is currently shooting Steve, based on the book Shy by Max Porter which Murphy and Moloney are producing under Big Things for Netflix.
He also recently signed on for Blood Runs Coal, based on Mark A Bradley’s book about the murder of union leader Joseph Yablonski, which Oppenheimer studio Universal pre-emptively acquired.
from deadline.com
