Idris Elba premiered the first of what he hopes will be a series of ‘Luther’ films on Wednesday, taking his hit British television drama to a new audience.
In ‘Luther: The Fallen Sun’, a Netflix film, Elba reprises his role as the brilliant but troubled and impulsive Detective Chief Inspector John Luther, the character he played in the award-winning BBC series ‘Luther’ between 2010 and 2019.
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Continuing from the show, the movie starts with Luther working on a new case of a missing person, when he is sent to jail over his past tactics.
In prison, he is taunted by a serial killer linked to the case. Haunted by his failure to capture the man, Luther breaks out of jail to find him.
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“It was always a dream… We started the show… one season, two seasons, oh they like it, three seasons and then that’s when it started to percolate, that you know what, we can take this to a film,” Elba told Reuters at the film’s global premiere in London.
Asked if this could be the start of a series of ‘Luther’ films, Elba said: “Yes… let’s put it out there. I’d like to see it as a series of films for sure.”
Actor Andy Serkis plays the killer taunting Luther.
“I actually really did not want to play this character when I first read it because I just thought I’ve played a number of dark characters, this is right down the end there,” Serkis said.
“And then I took a step back… part of the challenge of being an actor is trying to offer a character like this up to an audience and say: okay, really consider the debate about what this really means. And… he represents our folly really, our desire to give so much power to the internet, to technology.”
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Series creator and writer Neil Cross said he had to strike a careful balance for fans of the show and new ones.
“The biggest trick was how to make one single stand-alone movie that both respected and entertained both audiences equally,” he said. “That took some work and some thought.”
