Cillian Murphy Will Return for 'Peaky Blinders' Movie, With Filming Set to Begin in September

The sixth and final season of the gangland period drama Peaky Blinders aired back in June of 2022, but it was generally accepted knowledge that the story of the Shelby family would continue in a different medium well before the final credits of the television series rolled. (So well known was this information, that it's possible to argue that public awareness that the story of Tommy and his siblings wasn't over yet cast something of a pall over that final run of episodes, as it's evident that certain narrative choices were made in service of a film that didn't exist yet.)

Well, after several years and what feels like a metric ton of rumors, the Peaky Blinders movie is finally happening, complete with its biggest and most successful star. According to series creator Steven Knight, production on the as-yet-untitled film is slated to begin in September, complete with leading man Cillian Murphy, who plays family leader, antihero, and general moral disaster Tommy Shelby. 

Murphy's involvement will likely surprise no one --- after all, Peaky Blinders doesn't really work without Tommy, as he's the character whose frequent struggles against his better angels and worse demons have always formed the heart of the show. 

But Murphy is also fresh off his most successful professional year to date, landing an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, and more for his (genuinely exceptional) performance in the lead role of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, We're just really lucky his proverbial dance card isn't full for the foreseeable, is what I'm saying. 

The news that production on the long-awaited Peaky movie is finally about to begin comes straight from Knight himself, courtesy of an interview with the Birmingham World at the premiere of his new BBC drama This Town. 

"He definitely is returning for it. We're shooting it in September just down the road in Digbeth," he said. 

Peaky Blinders follows the story of the Shelby family, members of the Birmingham gang from which the series takes its name, as the group, led by Murphy's Tommy Shelby, rises from low-level gunrunning to the highest echelons of government power. The series ran from 2013 to 2022, and concluded with an intra-family battle that set various Shelby members against one another.  

There's no word about what sort of story the movie might tackle, though there are some hints to be found in the TV series finale, including the introduction of a long-lost Shelby relative, the expulsion of Finn from the family, and Tommy's decision to disappear and start his life over after the caravan he'd been living in was burned down (and he realized he wasn't actually dying from a terminal illness). 

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly back in February 2022, Knight referred to the conclusion of the television show as "the end of the beginning of the franchise," and implied that the upcoming film would not only continue the show's central story but introduce a larger universe of potential spin-offs. 

"According to how the film structure falls into place, we'll set in motion some spin-offs that will be part of the same universe," he told EW. (What that all actually means, of course, is anyone's guess.)

If production is slated to begin in the Fall of this year, it's unlikely we'll see the Peaky movie before mid-2025 at least. But it's still exciting to have some level of confirmation that it's actually happening, given all the years of rumors and talk. Stay tuned.