From Small Screen To Cinema Screen – Is A Luther Movie Going To Happen?

Luther has proved to be a smash hit. It combines a gritty, urban British setting, sick and twisted protagonists and the languid, dulcet tones of the honey-throated maverick cop, Idris Elba. No wonder a feature length movie is being talked about now the show is in its third season, then.

Taking the crime drama from the small screen shouldn’t be too difficult logistically; the current season is split into four one-hour episodes, and the average length for a multifaceted crime film is around two hours – all they need is a solid story. But for Elba, the issue isn’t with the practicalities, but the current state of the movie business.

He told BBC Newsbeat: “Old genre films like Seven and Kiss the Girls haven’t been made in a long time. [It] has to speak to audiences who haven’t seen the show,” he explained. “It’s a complex thing to try to turn a TV show into a film but I think we can. I think we can do it.”

And of the new series, which unusually features just four episodes, he said: “We wanted to just make a short run. In fact, we didn’t really have a plan for how long we were going to shoot Luther for but the third season is definitely dedicated to the fans. They waited a year and a half for it, and so I’m really, really excited to give them the third season.” Elba made his acting name portraying a character on the other side of the law: Stringer Bell in the HBO hit, The Wire. Although his character in Luther is that of a law enforcer, his nonconformist ways have seen him become a nation’s favourite. We think you’ll be seeing a Luther movie come 2015, with Elba moving onto a role as 007 not long after. You heard it here first, sort of.