Peaky Blinders fans, time to assemble! It is official, we have not seen the last of Tommy Shelby after all. In an interview with Birmingham World, Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight confirmed that recent Oscar winner Cillian Murphy is set to reprise his role of the much-loved gangster in an upcoming movie version of the original series.
The news has come just off of Murphy’s recent success at the award season where he won a Golden Globe, a Bafta, a Screen Actors Guild award and an Oscar where he won Best Actor for his lead role as J Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s biopic about the creator of the atomic bomb (which also won Best Picture).
The new Peaky Blinders movie is due to begin filming in later this year and will follow on from the end of the series and continue the story of the Shelby family. Knight confirmed by saying, “We’re shooting it in September just down the road in Digbeth.”
The much awaited return of Tommy Shelby has not taken many by surprise as Murphy has been vocal about his interest in returning to the role as long as the script was “worthy enough.”
This was also mentioned in a conversation for Variety’s Actors on Actors between Murphy and Barbie’s Margot Robbie last year, who asked him about his role as Tommy Shelby and a potential spinoff movie to which he responded: “I mean, I’m open to the idea. I’ve always thought that if there’s more story to tell.”
Peaky Blinders originally premiered on BBC Two with its last two seasons moving to BBC One. With the show arriving on Netflix shortly after, it garnered more popularity and much more global audience. While the season finale last aired in April of 2022, Knight was always vocal about the continuation of the story in a film.
With the original narrative set in Birmingham post the First World War where it follows the Shelby family rising in power as a gang, the new film is set in the context of the build up into the Second World War.