Colin Farrell Gambles on Netflix's Adaptation of 'The Ballad of a Small Player'

Netflix initially announced in April 2024 that it was commissioning a feature film adaptation of the 2014 bestseller The Ballad of a Small Player. The project is directed by Edward Berger, whose All Quiet on the Western Front swept the BAFTAs (though not the Oscars) in 2023; from the outset, Colin Farrell (The Penguin) was attached to play the lead role. A few weeks later, Netflix added another A-list lead to the movie, with Tilda Swinton (Three Thousand Years of Longing) joining Farrell on the project. Then, as Netflix projects do, it disappeared entirely from the radar.

Or it would have, had Farrell and Berger not had a one-two punch of promotion at the end of 2024 with HBO’s The Batman spinoff series The Penguin (think of it as The Gotham City Sopranos) debuting, followed by an awards push for Berger's current film, Conclave. As part of his barrage of interviews, Farrell started discussing the upcoming film, telling Collider that filming for The Ballad of a Small Player was “f*cking insane.”

Considering the fictional novel it’s based on, that’s not surprising. British novelist and journalist Lawrence Osborne’s eighth published work, it garnered rave reviews when it was released, with reviewers stating it was worthy of placing Osborne among the greats like Graham Greene and Dostoevsky. Set in the gambling casinos of Macau, it follows the fortunes of an English con man who passes himself off as a runaway Lord, but it’s also a mystery, a thriller, and a ghost story.