In some ways, it's almost a surprise that it's taken this long for one of the biggest and best streaming sites to pick up The Thursday Murder Club and turn it into a franchise. The scale of Richard Osman's novel's sales success speaks for itself, as do the sequels that are already out and available to read.
Still, better late than never – Netflix has a movie on the way with a glitzy cast, and it just gave out a first proper teaser, showing us the club in all its glory, as well as confirming its release date. It'll arrive on Netflix on 28 August, which makes that a date to circle in your calendar.
The titular club is a made up of a group of characterful residents in an old persons' home, who gather on Thursdays to make use of a spare room to study cold murder cases that have long gone unsolved. They're amateur sleuths who fancy themselves as detectives, despite their advancing years and lack of experience.
Who are the four? Well, they're played by some massive names; Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan and Celia Imrie, and the whole thing's directed by Chris Columbus. For fans of basically any British movies from the past few decades, each of them brings a huge amount of interest with them, along with buckets of charisma, gravitas and (surprisingly) comic timing.
Of course, cold cases can only hold the imagination for so long, and the club really swings into gear when a death in its local community ignites speculation about who could be responsible. From there, you can expect a murder mystery that errs towards the lighter end of the tonal spectrum, which is refreshing.
Since the novel has been such a blockbuster success, this is one to mention to people who might not know about it – I can guarantee that plenty of people's parents will have read the book and be keen on a movie. So, circle the end of August in your mind and look forward to what could be the first in a series of adaptations.
