Is An Adaptation Of The Man Who Died Twice On Its Way?
By
2 hours ago
The Thursday Murder Club film is finally on Netflix
After a five-year run-up and a week in cinemas, Netflix’s adaptation of television presenter Richard Osman’s hit crime novel The Thursday Murder Club is finally streaming. Garnering rave reviews across the board thanks to stellar performances from its A-list cast (Helen Mirren, Celie Imrie, Pierce Brosnan and Sir Ben Kingsley all star), the film centres on four friends who meet in later living community Coopers Chase and bond over their shared fascination with knotty unsolved murders, meeting every Thursday afternoon to dissect cold cases in what is usually the jigsaw room. But their ordinary low-stakes intrigue is transformed when a murder happens right on their doorstep – and the club has its very first live case to untangle.
Directed by Chris Columbus (the man behind Home Alone, Percy Jackson and the first two Harry Potter films), The Thursday Murder Club is a quintessentially British cosy crime drama which we are certain will be just as popular on the screen as it has been on the page. Indeed Osman’s popularity is nothing to sniff at: The Thursday Murder Club flew off the shelves when it was published on 3 September 2020, shifting 45,000 copies in its first three days on sale according to The Bookseller, making it the UK’s fastest selling adult crime debut novel since records began and prompting publisher Viking to order not one but two more sequels from Osman. Come December, The Thursday Murder Club was still topping charts, shifting a further 134,514 copies in the week leading up to 19 December making it the very first debut novel to top the Christmas charts in British history.
Flash forward to now, three more Thursday Murder Club books have been published – one every year since the series’ first. That’s The Man Who Died Twice (2021), The Bullet That Missed (2022) and The Last Devil To Die (2023), with a fifth instalment, The Impossible Fortune, coming in September. All have been well received, with more than 10 million copies sold worldwide. And with Osman’s The Rest Is Entertainment podcast (which he shares with Marina Hyde) similarly garnering a cult following, it is safe to say the industry is willing to take a punt on whatever the TV presenter puts out there.
So with this star-studded adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club finally streaming on Netflix, only one question remains: will they make a sequel? Here’s everything we know so far about a possible film adaptation of The Man Who Died Twice, Osman’s second novel in his Thursday Murder Club series.
MORE: Inside The Real Coopers Chase
(L to R) Steven Spielberg, Richard Osman, Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Celia Imrie, Ben Kingsley and Chris Columbus attend the UK Premiere of Netflix’s ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ at Leicester Square Gardens, London on August 21st, 2025. (Photo by StillMoving.Net for Netflix)
The Man Who Died Twice Movie: Everything We Know So Far
Back in March 2020, Amblin Entertainment snapped up the worldwide film rights for Osman’s debut novel The Thursday Murder Club, beating out 13 other interested studios six months before it was even published. Chaired and founded by Steven Spielberg in 1980, the company has produced everything from the Back to the Future franchise and ET (1982) to The Fabelmans (2022) and the upcoming Hamnet adaptation (2025).
‘With all due respect to every single other company who bid for it, when Spielberg’s in you’re gonna say yes to Spielberg,’ Osman told Empire upon the news. Soon after the news, Covid struck, followed by the SAG-AFRA strikes, halting any headway for a handful of years. But by early 2024, Columbus, Mirren, Brosnan and Kingsley were attached to the project and it was full steam ahead. Filming commenced in June 2024 and wrapped in September. But a few weeks before filming concluded, there was ‘the real wrap party’, director Columbus told C&TH in June.
Sir Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, Steven Spielberg, Richard Osman, Chris Columbus, Celia Imrie & Pierce Brosnan on the set of The Thursday Murder Club. (Courtesy of Netflix © 2024)
‘I had an opportunity to have an intimate dinner with the cast, Richard Osman and his wife Ingrid at one of my favorite restaurants in the world, London’s River Café,’ the director said. ‘There was incredible food, wine and three nonstop hours of laughter.’
But here’s the kicker: the affair ‘didn’t feel like the traditional wrap of a film,’ Columbus told us. ‘It felt more like a celebration of the beginning of our work together on many more of these movies.’
He also told PA decisions are ‘all based on how many people watch the film over the first weekend. We will know in about 10 days if we’re making a sequel.’
With four more books on the shelf reading and waiting to be adapted, we think there is a long future for our on-screen quartet. Naturally we have to wait and see the performance of the movie, with Netflix execs holding the greenlighting power. But it is not just Columbus who is keen: lead star Mirren has added her enthusiasm to the mix, telling the Daily Mail, ‘I’d love to spend every summer from now to the day I die playing Elizabeth.’
Celia Imrie, Sir Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan in The Thursday Murder Club. (Giles Keyte/Netflix)
What Will Happen?
Like the first film, we would expect a sequel to The Thursday Murder Club to trace the events of the book. The Man Who Died Twice opens on the Thursday following the events of the first book, when former spy Elizabeth receives a letter from an old colleague – a man she has a long history with. He finds himself in the midst of a sticky situation – think stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, a big mistake and a threat to life – and needs Elizabeth’s help.
And what can she do but respond, enlisting Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron to help catch another murderer?
(L to R) Celia Imrie, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Chris Columbus, Steven Spielberg and Ben Kingsley attend the UK Premiere of Netflix’s ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ at Leicester Square Gardens, London on August 21st, 2025. (Photo by StillMoving.Net for Netflix)
Who Will Star?
According to star Imrie, our core quartet would be keen to return for the sequel if it gets the greenlight. That’s Celia Imrie, Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Sir Ben Kingsley.
‘We all would, but we’re superstitious and we don’t want to spook things,’ Imrie recently told PA. ‘But that’s a testament to how much we all had an unforgettable time. An unforgettable summer, it was, really.’
Other returning characters from the first book include coppers Donna (Naomi Ackie) and Chris (Daniel Mays), as well as Elizabeth’s husband Stephen (Jonathan Pryce), Ron’s son Jason (Tom Ellis) and Joyce’s daughter Joanna (Ingrid Oliver), and we would expect all to return. It is also thought Sarah Niles will star as Donna’s mum Patrice after her cameo in the first film was cut.
(L to R) Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Steven Spielberg and Ben Kingsley attend the UK Premiere of Netflix’s ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ at Leicester Square Gardens, London on August 21st, 2025. (Photo by StillMoving.Net for Netflix)
The Thursday Murder Club Stage Show
Meanwhile another industry is betting on Osman: the theatre industry. In May 2024, just before filming on the movie adaptation got underway, Osman told his The Rest Is Entertainment listeners a stage version of The Thursday Murder Club was in the works. Collaborating with British actor and writer Tom Basden – best known for co-creating Plebs and penning the recent indie hit The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025) – Osman revealed Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment will produce this too since the company already has the rights, alongside theatre stalwarts Playful Productions. Rather than trace the events of the novel, the stage play will feature a brand new murder case.
Speaking on the podcast, Osman said: ‘The adaptation has to go through the lens of being in the theatre,’ adding ‘lots of small things’ have to change and be considered. ‘It has to be an hour first half, there has to be an interval because that’s how theatre pays for things and then there has to be a shorter second half,’ he explained. ‘But that’s not a million miles different from a movie. It’s very different to a book.’
Sir Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren & Pierce Brosnan in The Thursday Murder Club. (Giles Keyte/Netflix)
Back then Osman acknowledged the play was ‘at very early stages’, and hoped there would be more to say on it ‘next year I suspect’ – which is, of course, this year. Has production stalled? While news on the Thursday Murder Club theatre adaptation has quietened, we are sure movements are still being made: Osman recently gave Basden’s film The Ballad of Wallis Island a shoutout on the red carpet at the premiere of The Thursday Murder Club.
To keep the buzz going, we expect producers are being strategic. Once this initial hubbub around the first film has died down, we expect to hear about the stage adaptation or a film adaptation of The Man Who Died Twice (or both) pretty swiftly.
Sir Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Richard Osman, Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie & Chris Columbus on the set of The Thursday Murder Club at the very beginning of filming. (Courtesy of Netflix © 2024)
Release Date
If Netflix confirms The Man Who Died Twice adaptation is being made, we expect it to be filmed in summer 2026 so the film can premiere in September 2027. Our fingers are crossed for sooner, but one thing is certain regardless: the movie will be released on a Thursday.
Speaking to PA, Columbus shared his preference for back to back filming – so if The Man Who Died Twice goes ahead, it is very likely The Bullet That Missed (2022) will get the greenlight too. ‘I would prefer to do two and three back to back, I would say,’ the director told PA. ‘Why not? You know, we’re at the castle, let’s spend 100 days and make both films.’
The Thursday Murder Club is now streaming on Netflix.
