The long awaited movie adaptation of popular BBC series “Luther” is gearing up for a September production start, actor and executive producer Idris Elba has revealed.
Speaking to Variety on Friday, Elba said: “We go into production, fingers crossed, in September. I’m so excited about it, it’s been a long time coming.
“We’re very, very close to pulling the green light on production,” Elba added.
Debuting in 2010, “Luther,” created by Neil Cross, has completed five seasons on the BBC. It features Elba as the titular detective. The British actor has won two Golden Globes and a Royal Television Society best actor award for his portrayal.
In the series, Elba plays John Luther, a detective chief inspector working for the Serious Crime Unit of the U.K. police. He’s a dedicated police officer for whom the job comes first, but often at the cost of his personal life, and Luther is keenly affected by the darkness of the crimes he deals with.
The show was at the center of controversy in April when BBC diversity manager Miranda Wayland suggested that the Luther character was not authentic enough as a Black protagonist.
Speaking at digital MIPTV, Wayland said: “When it first came out everybody loved the fact that Idris Elba was in there — a really strong, Black character lead. We all fell in love with him. Who didn’t, right? But after you got into about the second series you got kind of, like, okay, he doesn’t have any Black friends, he doesn’t eat any Caribbean food, this doesn’t feel authentic.”
The “Luther” film is currently set up as a 20th Century Fox Television, BBC Worldwide Productions and Chernin Entertainment production, with Elba, Peter Chernin, Julie Gardner, Katherine Pope and Jane Tranter on board as executive producers. Separately, Tranter and Gardner run production company Bad Wolf, which produces “A Discovery of Witches” and “Industry.”