MOVIE NEWS – British novelist and screenwriter Neil Cross revealed that he originally planned to have a woman as the first murder victim in Luther: The Fallen Sun. The Luther projects are known for having a lot of violence in the films. Besides the violence, these films also start with an opening murder of a man. Although Cross thought that a female first victim would be more effective, he changed his mind after Netflix asked him to reconsider his idea.

Neil Cross explained why he wanted a woman as the first murder victim in the film. He told The Independent: “It has been said before that people are uncomfortable with the victimisation of women in Luther – not without reason. The strange thing, though, is that, if one were to do the maths, there are many more male victims in Luther than there are women. But for reasons I fear to probe too deeply, the female victims resonate and scare more deeply. So, there was a defiant part of me in the first draft of this, which was, ‘… the victim is going to be a woman because that’s more frightening.’”

After he expressed his interest in having a female first victim, Netflix wanted him to think about his decision again. He said: “And that was the one moment where Netflix said, ‘Do you want to think about this a bit?’ And I did say, ‘Well, it’ll be less scary.’ I worried that it might be. But actually, they were right.’”

Andy Serkis as the Villain in Luther: The Fallen Sun

The biggest challenge for Cross was to come up with villains for the film. At first, he had no idea who to choose as Idris Elba’s opponent. It was only when Andy Serkis’ name came up as the film’s villain that he had an idea. Instead of choosing someone who could physically intimidate Elba, they chose someone who had a psychopathic vibe. He said: “The biggest problem with the villains is how do you find someone whose presence poses a believable threat to Idris Elba? It’s not an easy thing to do, so I thought we had a really big struggle ahead of us. But at a meeting with Jamie [Payne, director] and Idris I said: ‘Do we have a list of actors?’ and Idris said: ‘Oh, we should get Andy Serkis.’ And that was that.”

Luther: The Fallen Sun is now available on Netflix.

Source: MovieWeb