With fans on the edge of their seats for the return of hit BBC drama Luther on New Year’s Day, the show’s star Idris Elba has teased that a movie version of the show could be in production as early as next year.
The 46-year-old actor told Lad Bible: “I’ve always said that there should be a movie. I really want to do that and we’re very close to doing that next year, hopefully, so let’s see.”
Read more: New series of Luther to begin on New Year’s Day
Idris, who plays DCI John Luther, continued: “For me it would be nice to take Luther up a scale. Make the storyline bigger, make it slightly more international.”
The Londoner has big plans for a movie version of the dark drama and hopes filming will move outside of the capital.
Talking to the Radio Times, he revealed: “It’s filmed in London now because that’s where we are, but if we do a movie version it can be – ‘Right, then he went to Brazil’ – and you can be in the favelas because it’s on a larger scale.”
Read more: BBC confirms Alice Morgan’s return to Luther in latest teaser trailer
It’s been a long four-year wait for Luther to return to screens with the BBC finally confirming it’s return revealing the new episodes will see “DCI John Luther once more called to immerse himself in the deepest depths of human depravity in a new four-part series.”
Idris, who has been working in Hollywood and pursuing his DJing career since the show last aired has admitted that he knew if he didn’t return the show would no longer exist.
He told the Daily Telegraph: “I remember going, ‘If I don’t do it, that’s the end of the show. I need to do it’.”
In 2014 the show was touted for a big US remake and now Idris has explained why it never materialised. He explains: “I was involved as a producer from a consultancy point of view, to make sure that if they did do it, that it was done properly.
“There’s a couple of reasons [why it didn’t happen]. One, if I’m really honest, was that they couldn’t find a John Luther. And two, it was really hard to find a city that felt as big as London, but also as intimate.”
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The actor’s odds of replacing Daniel Craig as the new James Bond have also been slashed ahead of the return of Luther
A spokesperson for bookies Coral, who have cut his odd from 8-1 t o 4-1 to be the new 007, revealed: “It’s clear that there are a lot of people out there that think he could well be the perfect person to be the next James Bond, despite the fact that he has played it down in the past.”
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