Yahoo News How Luther: The Fallen Sun sets up future John Luther films
WARNING: This post contains spoilers from Luther: The Fallen Sun.
Started from the bottom, now he's free!
John Luther (Idris Elba) has a rough journey during Luther: The Fallen Sun. The film begins with him in prison, but after a jailbreak, navigating around the authorities, and taking down David Robey (Andy Serkis), the disgraced police officer has found a new lease on life. John is certain he'd wind up back in jail, but in the closing moments his friend and mentor Martin Schenk (Dermot Crowley) informs him that someone from the government wants to speak with him and he walks towards a car to meet with a mysterious figure. We don't know exactly where he goes next, but someone is certainly interested in his abilities.
John Wilson/Netflix Idris Elba as John Luther in 'Luther: The Fallen Sun.'
Elba sees this chapter of John's story as one about tenacity. "He's been slapped on the wrist for going outside the law, but even then he won't give up. That's what this is about," Elba explains.
Starting at rock bottom in prison without his badge, John still manages to take down David Robey and comes out the other side with his confidence in himself returning. Without his badge John Luther is able to defeat the bad guy and along the way he confronts himself. "Finally, after a long journey, he finally understands who he is, what he wants, and why," Luther creator Neil Cross tells EW.
While there is more humbleness to John after his ordeal according to Elba, this new attitude won't mean he'll be staying on the right side of the law. "If it might save some lives, he's gonna do that again," he says about his characters less than lawful tactics. John is now very aware of what the repercussions of his actions could be.
Calling Fallen Sun an "achievement," Elba admits that nothing goes on forever but is excited about the endless opportunities ahead for wherever John goes next. "One of the great things about moving to this format is that Luther is unrestricted by the specifics of the [detective] genre. As long as it's psychologically true to the character and his history, there are any number of stories that we can tell," Cross explains.
One certainty about John Luther's future is that it'll be told through movies and not returning to its television roots. "We're moving Luther into bigger stories, spaces, and worlds, into more operatic backgrounds," Cross says. "Whatever we do there's always going to be a sense of forward movement and doing things we haven't done before."
John Wilson/Netflix Idris Elba as John Luther in 'Luther: The Fallen Sun.'
Now that Luther has been reintroduced to a new potential audience, incorporating more of the character's past is a possibility moving forward. "We were very careful to make sure the story was constructed to welcome anybody who wanted to watch," Cross says about the future. "There are characters that will return to the world of Luther if we move forward," he teases.
Those potential returns would need to be compelling to the story being told and not quick cameos, according to Cross, who says he is looking forward to more joining John and Martin in future adventures. When asked specifically about Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) who is believed to be dead, Cross says there's still hope for a return. "We never saw them setting first to her coffin and even if we had, I would still doubt she was in it," he says.
Don't be surprised if DCI Odette Raine (Cynthia Eviro) joins John Luther wherever he ends up next. Cross says that Eviro's new character came alive on the page, then through her performance, so Odette is someone that he'd love to continue to bring to viewers. As for Eviro, she's up to play Odette again: "I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd love to go back again."
While we do not know where the franchise goes next, Elba still has questions about John's past and what drives him. He is compelled to fix the wrongs in the world and the actor wants to find the way, which has yet to be explored. "I would love to understand what his childhood was like," Elba says. "I always feel like there's this massive secret about John and no one knows."
Luther: The Fallen Sun is streaming now on Netflix.
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