Idris Elba Returning for ‘Luther’ Movie

Idris Elba is returning to Luther, but not for Season 6. The 48-year-old actor will reprise the titular role in the long-running BBC drama series for a movie, which is filming sometime in 2021. Per The Daily Mail, Elba revealed the Luther movie during a Friday appearance on The All-New Capital Weekender, a popular U.K. radio show hosted by MistaJam.

MistaJam asked about Elba’s 2021 plans, which are mostly a mystery up to this point. Several of his movies, including The Suicide Squad, are in post-production, and recent updates have been about behind-the-scenes work, including him and his wife Sabrina Dhowre producing a Crunchyroll anime series entitled Dantai. Luckily, the London native’s fans won’t have to worry about a drought of Elba content any time soon. Aside from his career as a music producer, the Thor and The Wire actor will also step back in front of the camera for a Luther movie.

“[I’m] definitely making more music. People that love my film and stuff, listen, I’m going to be making Luther: The Movie,” he said. “I’m super excited, and I hope the fans are sort of excited for that. It’s been a long time coming for a movie, for people that have loved the show. We’ve been making the show for 10 years, so we’re making film.”

These comments follow a more vague tease from Luther creator Neil Cross. In a November interview with The Sunday Telegraph’s Insider section, Cross stated that the series, which aired on BBC and BBC America for five seasons between May 2010 and January 2019, would not have a sixth season, but something else was in the pipeline.

“There is not going to be a Season 6 — definitively no Season 6,” Cross, 52, said. “But Idris, (Season 5 director) Jamie Payne, and I will shortly have some exciting news to share. There’s gonna be more later, but it’s not going to be Season 6.”

Elba’s upcoming movies include the Netflix western Concrete Cowboy, another western entitled The Harder They Fall, the George Miller fantasy film Three Thousand Years of Longing and the aforementioned The Suicide Squad, in which he plays DC Comics character Bloodsport. The Suicide Squad will release in theaters and via HBO Max on Aug. 6, but none of the other movies have release dates on the calendar.