The Thursday Murder Club: Richard E. Grant, Tom Ellis and Geoff Bell are latest additions to star-studded cast

The Thursday Murder Club, an upcoming Netflix film based on Richard Osman’s 2020 bestseller, might just win this year’s award for starriest cast.

Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Sir Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie, David Tennant, Jonathan Pryce, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays and Henry Lloyd-Hughes had already signed up to the production, but now even more heavy hitters have joined the lineup.

On Tuesday Netflix announced that Richard E. Grant (Withnail & I), Tom Ellis (Lucifer), Geoff Bell (Top Boy), Paul Freeman (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Sarah Niles (Ted Lasso) and Ingrid Oliver (Doctor Who) will also feature in the new film.

And the news has been thrilling fans: “I mean I suppose that's an OK cast,” joked one on X. Another said, “Read Tom Ellis and was in straight away.” A third said, “This looks like its going to be great. Can't wait!”

The Thursday Murder Club, now a series of four books, is set in a luxury retirement home in a peaceful English village. The story follows four of its residents, who meet every week to discuss cold cases. One day, their world turns upside down when they too get pulled into a shocking murder mystery.

The four friends are ex-spy Elizabeth (played by Mirren), ex-psychiatrist Ibrahim (Kingsley), former union activist Ron (Brosnan), and ex-nurse Joyce (Imrie).

“I’m incredibly excited about it,” said Osman on This Morning in February. “Amazing casting news which I am not allowed to say, but certainly one of the cast is someone who people always say to me ‘is so-and-so going to be in this film? One of the names is someone I never would have thought of in a million years, but is absolutely brilliant.”

The film is being written and directed by Chris Columbus, the filmmaker who made the first Home Alone, as well as Mrs. Doubtfire and the first two Harry Potter movies.

Osman announced that filming would start at the end of June, and continue throughout the summer.