DCI John Luther is a man of few jackets. In fact, he’s a man of one jacket. He’s found a look, and he’s worked it for all it’s worth. That big wool overcoat of his has seen some things over the years that Idris Elba’s copper has been getting his hands dirty cleaning out the criminal underworld – things no dry cleaner could ever get out. And now, Empire can exclusively reveal the very first images released anywhere from Netflix’s upcoming Luther film – one that, as you’ll see, is set to take him head out of London and into the wilderness. Striding across snow-covered mountains in just that overcoat? Eat that, Edmund Hilary.
As Elba sees it, taking Luther into a new medium gives his detective the chance to travel further into the character when he leaves his London backyard. “We really peel the onion back here because we had the time and scale to do that,” he tells Empire. “It also gives Neil [Cross] a lot more, you know, Luther-land to play with, in terms of where Luther can go, how he goes, what the landscape is.” And taking Luther out of his usual stomping ground brings all kinds of opportunities. “We break out of the gritty streets of London, we take it outside of that a little bit,” Elba explains. “And that’s great. It feels like now we’re entering a different life of the Luther experience.”
Even as the boundaries are being pushed, Elba promises that the dark tone of the TV series will still be there in blood-spattered spades. “It’s really dangerous when expanding from television to film to throw a lot of money at it, and for that moment to change the characteristics of the show,” he says. “I wanted to make sure that even though we had a bigger budget, [we didn’t] distort the parameters of Luther-land too much. We do amplify the action and do amplify the stakes. But [Season 3’s] man-under-the-bed moment? That don’t cost you much money. Those moments are still intact.” As, thankfully, is the shirt-tie-overcoat combo. Phew.
Read Empire’s full Luther story in the Indiana Jones 5 issue, on sale Thursday 24 November and available to pre-order online here. The Luther film will be released in March 2023.