‘Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight Says A Movie “Is Going To Happen”

EXCLUSIVE: With yesterday’s news that BAFTA-winning period gangster epic Peaky Blinders will conclude with its sixth season came a promise of the series continuing “in another form,” creator Steven Knight said. Elaborating on that, he tells Deadline, “Covid changed our plans. But I can say that my plan from the beginning was to end Peaky with a movie. That is what is going to happen.”

A film has long been considered for the series, and while there are no details for the moment and Deadline understands that nothing has been formalized, it would seem a logical extension for the show which has become its own industry — or as Knight has told me in the past, Peaky is “a beast that will not die.” There have been tie-in books, clothing lines, an official soundtrack and a video game. Knight has also been approached about a spinoff ballet version and a West End musical.

Knight had previously expressed interest in wrapping the Cillian Murphy-led drama’s TV run with a seventh season, but the pandemic threw a wrench into the works. Season 6 began filming on Monday, delayed a little less than a year by the pandemic. Details are still under wraps, although Knight has previously said that he was planting seeds in Season 5 to be picked up later on, one of which was “that fascism is afoot.”

Executive producer Caryn Mandabach tells me, “This final season of our beloved Peaky Blinders is going to be the best one yet. Steve’s uncanny ability to be prescient about world events is only matched by his ability to make Tommy Shelby the most indelible character of our times.”

Season 5 was the most-watched yet for the Shelby family as the series has gone from strength to strength since 2013. That last season kicked off with the financial crash of 1929 and with Murphy’s Tommy Shelby an MP. When he’s approached by real-life fascist firebrand Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin) and his bold vision for Britain, Tommy realizes that his response will affect not just his family’s future but that of the entire nation.

The season also delved into Tommy’s psyche and Knight over the years has said he would like to “rehabilitate” the character. His plan, he previously has told us, was to end the series at seven seasons with the start of WWII so that Peaky becomes a story about people between the wars.