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Never fear, Peaky Blinders fans — the Shelbys live on!
The gritty drama set in the Birmingham criminal underworld will continue after its upcoming feature film with a series centered on a new generation of Shelbys.
Peaky Blinders will return to television with a two-season sequel, Netflix and the BBC announced on Thursday. Original Peaky star Cillian Murphy is an executive producer, as is series creator Steven Knight.
ROBERT VIGLASKY/Netflix
The series’ official logline reads: “Britain, 1953. After being heavily bombed in WWII, Birmingham is building a better future out of concrete and steel. In a new era of Steven Knight’s Peaky Blinders, the race to own Birmingham’s massive reconstruction project becomes a brutal contest of mythical dimensions. This is a city of unprecedented opportunity and danger, with the Shelby family right at its blood-soaked heart.”
The sequels will follow the Peaky Blinders movie, which is currently in post-production and is expected to be released next year.
“I’m thrilled to be announcing this new chapter in the Peaky Blinders story,” Knight said in a statement. “Once again it will be rooted in Birmingham and will tell the story of a city rising from the ashes of the Birmingham blitz. The new generation of Shelbys have taken the wheel and it will be a hell of a ride.”
As with parts of the Peaky Blinders feature, the new series will be shot at Knigh’’s Digbeth Loc. Studios in Birmingham. Both seasons will be produced by Kudos (SAS Rogue Heroes, House of Guinness, Grantchester) and Garrison Drama (Peaky Blinders Seasons 1-6, The Peaky Blinders Movie).
Karen Wilson and Martin Haines (Kudos), Jamie Glazebrook (Garrison Drama) and Jo McClellan (BBC) will serve as executive producers alongside Murphy and Knight. Mona Qureshi and Toby Bentley will oversee for Netflix.
The original lauded series ran for nearly a decade, from 2013 to 2022, and helped launch Murphy to even greater heights as an international star. It followed the rise and fall of the fictional Shelby family circa 1900s England and also starred Paul Anderson, Sophie Rundle, and Helen McCrory.
The show’s end after six seasons devastated many fans, but even as the series finale aired in June 2022, Peaky punks (Blinder-ites?) could rest easy, knowing that final closure in the form of a film was on its way.
“We’re going to end the series as it is at the moment, but we’re going to do the movie, which we’ll shoot in 18 months time, maybe a little bit longer,” Knight told EW in 2021.
Robert Viglasky/Netflix
The film’s story is being kept firmly locked away for the time being, but it’s described as “an epic continuation” of the series set during World War II. As Knight put it, “The country is at war, and so, of course, are our Peaky Blinders.”
Along with Murphy, the film will also star Rebecca Ferguson, Barry Keoghan, Stephen Graham, and Tim Roth.
But Knight always kept the faith of continuing the Shelbys’ story beyond the original series and film alive.
During a March appearance on The Playlist‘s Bingeworthy podcast, Knight called the film “a fitting end to the first chapter” and teased about possibly continuing the story, “As long as there’s an appetite for it and I’ve got stories to tell, then why not?”
Consider fans’ appetites whet!
