There is no such thing as a dead project in Hollywood’s streaming era. The current entertainment landscape is dominated by familiar intellectual property from both larger-than-life cinematic universes and nostalgia-based small budget productions. Cult classics like How I Met Your Mother and iCarly have ben born again on Hulu and Paramount+, respectively, while famed franchises such as Breaking Bad have expanded its world in the form of El Camino and Better Call Saul on Netflix.
The latest dormant show to be resurrected in the streaming world is Idris Elba’s Luther, a BBC program that ran throughout the 2010s. This psychological crime thriller ran for five seasons before getting picked up by Netflix for Luther: The Fallen Sun, a feature film continuation of the DCI’s story.
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Speaking with ComicBook.com’s Liam Crowley at the Luther: The Fallen Sun premiere, Elba noted that the advantage of bringing this franchise to the big screen revolves around the story’s scope.
“The luxury starts with just having more space to tell a bigger story without breaking it up into episodics,” Elba said. “Now we have this massive landscape [and] a bit of a bigger budget. We have more time to get under it. I’ve always dreamed about what we could do with Luther as a film, outside of ‘Luther Land’ in London, where can we take it?”
The Fallen Sun does just that, as Luther and company venture across the United Kingdom and into Estonia. If Elba gets his way, that expansion will continue in future Luther sequels.
“Now we have the opportunity. This film, I’m really hoping it’s the first of many,” Elba added.
Elba’s eagerness to do more Luther likely stems from the extensive work that went into getting The Fallen Sun off the ground. A Luther film was first discussed back in 2013, but the creatives ultimately decided to continue the franchise as a serialized project. It wasn’t until Summer 2020 that Elba revisited the idea of continuing the character in a movie format. Just over one year later, The Fallen Sun was greenlit by Netflix and acquired the talents of franchise newcomers Cynthia Erivo and Andy Serkis in supporting roles.
Luther: The Fallen Sun is now streaming on Netflix.
