Luther fans, rejoice! Idris Elba’s gruff detective will don that signature tweed coat once again for an “utterly heart-stopping and unmissable” four-part season, filming on which will kick off next month.
That’s right, Luther season 5 will head into production in January and it’ll herald John Luther’s first small-screen appearance since December of 2015. Granted, Elba has since reprised as the iconic sleuth, specifically for a Sport Relief sketch, but with the show’s co-creator and writer Neil Cross also on board, fans will no doubt be looking to this all-new fifth installment with bated breath.
“I delivered the final episode of Luther series five about an hour before leaving for the airport [to head to London for the Hard Sun premiere],” said Cross in a recent interview. “We’re in prep right now and we’re doing a bit of casting and we start shooting in January. For some reason, I always seem to shoot in the depths of winter.”
A January start would put Luther‘s fifth season on course for a late 2018 premiere – though the BBC has yet to announce a firm date for when it’ll hit airwaves. Whatever the case (see what we did there?), Elba’s husky-voiced detective was last seen tackling crime opposite DS Emma Lane (Rose Leslie), and with no mention of casting at this early stage, the jury’s still out on who will join Idris Elba for season 5. Perhaps we’ll see the return of Ruth Wilson’s chilling Alice? Time will tell.
In related news, Cross also confirmed that a movie is still something he’d “absolutely” love to do, and explained the difference between a feature film and writing for the small screen.
“It’s always going to be slightly different because of how long you have to tell a story. Ultimately, whatever Luther story you tell, in whatever medium, has to focus on that character so in some ways it will be exactly the same because it will be about him.”
So, it would seem that Luther may still head to theaters, though for now, the focus is very much on season 5, and that’s absolutely fine by us. After all, like we said above, it’s been far too long since we’ve seen Elba’s titular detective and at this point, we really don’t care where he shows up next (big screen or small), as long as we get more of him.