Netflix's latest massive mystery movie looks like a surefire hit, even if you only take into consideration how popular its source novel was – but the quality of the stars in The Thursday Murder Club makes it even more likely to succeed. Last week we got a full trailer, after previously having to survive on the thin gruel of a teaser.
It confirms once again that the movie will hit Netflix on 28 August, at the end of this month, and gives us a closer look at the four members of the club, and indeed the crime that they'll be investigating. The movie looks like a totally charming adaptation of Richard Osman's best-selling novel.
The main star of the show is very clearly Helen Mirren, as the ringleader of the titular club, which meets every Thursday in their upmarket retirement community to work on solving real-life cold cases for a bit of mental stimulation. When a new resident (Celia Imrie) joins, things start to heat up quickly – not least because of an actual murder in their area.
The other two members of the club are played by none other than Ben Kingsley and Pierce Brosnan, so this is really a cast of true British A-listers, something that Netflix doesn't always manage (or try) to deliver. I feel extremely confident that it's going to do huge numbers here in the UK, at least, but it'll be interesting to see whether it can translate that sort of success around the globe on Netflix's platform.
After all, the biggest and best streaming services all have regional content, including content in different languages, but they all hope for breakout hits from that content (think Squid Game or Money Heist). It isn't really fair to put British content like this in the same bucket as those shows, but it's nonetheless more of a heartland for UK viewers than it is for those in the US.
Still, this full trailer makes the movie look like it has every ingredient required to break out in a big way – including the fact that it's going to appeal to quite a few different age groups, which isn't true of many mystery thrillers. The literary equation that has worked so well for Osman could be about to evolve into a streaming one, too.
