A 'Luther' Movie Is In The Works, Confirms Star Idris Elba

Idris Elba may be donning his famous grey trenchcoat one more time — but this time, on the big screen. The star of the still-running BBC crime drama confirmed that a Luther movie is in the works, following up the upcoming fifth season of the Neil Cross series.

Elba and writer-creator Neil Cross can't let go of Luther. Though the series has only had four seasons, Elba has depicted the hotheaded genius detective for nearly a decade now, and it could stretch on even longer if the big-screen iteration comes to be. Elba confirmed that Cross is currently working on a feature version of Luther, which will "be more murder, more Volvos, more frowning Luther... essentially we just want to try to take it to a much bigger audience and scale, and perhaps international as well." He confirmed at the launch of season 5 in London (via JoBlo.Com):

We are really advancing on getting a movie version [of the show] up on the screen. Neil is beavering away on writing this thing, and I think the remit for the film is to scale it up. Luther has all the ingredients to echo those classic [neo-noir] films of the 90s like SEVEN and ALONG CAME A SPIDER and I think what we would like to do is use that blueprint to create LUTHER the film.

Elba added that the upcoming fifth season of Luther, which brings back the BBC series after a three-year hiatus, will be setting the ground work for the Luther movie. "This one's very particular because I think it's one of our last TV installments – I shouldn't say that as a matter of fact, but it was designed in the sense that Neil's and my ambition is to take it to a larger screen," Elba said. "We paid attention to what we were writing in this show. If we are to make a movie, this show is essentially a segue to that."

But the series could move Luther out of its current setting of London, England — truly bringing the series to a global scale. Elba said:

The reason cities work is there are lots of shadows and so I think those cities that have that Gotham-esque vibe to them, and I think that is mainly Europe. A film version would transfer quite easily to cities in Europe but who knows – wherever there is crime Luther will go.

This isn't the first talk of a Luther movie that Cross has thrown about. Back in 2013, Cross mulled a prequel film that would follow the detective's career in his earlier days, but that never came to pass. The writer-director and Elba also tried to launch an American version of the show in 2014, but that also fizzled. Now the duo return for the fifth season of Luther, which finds Elba's DCI John Luther back  and once again dealing with creepy serial killers.

The four-part Luther season 5 will air in the UK during the holiday season, and arrive on BBC America sometime in 2019.