The Thursday Murder Club recently entertained my parents quite a bit, as they actually called me to tell me to watch it, so clearly it has found at least some level of an audience. Now, we turn to the idea of a sequel, The Thursday Murder Club 2, albeit it wouldn’t be called that. Here are all the latest updates that we have, including the latest:

The Thursday Murder Club

• • The film is based on the first book of a series by Richard Osman that began in 2020, and has released a new installment every year since, with a fifth coming soon. So, at baseline, the source material is definitely there, and the next film would be The Man Who Died Twice, or, The Thursday Murder Club: The Man Who Died Twice, as I think Netflix would want to make it clear to everyone that this was a sequel.
  • Next, we have director Chris Columbus speaking to Film Stories early in August, where he seemed optimistic about a sequel even before the movie was released: “all signs seem to point” to “a sequel or the next chapter. Time will tell. It depends how many people see this film.”
  • Well, moving forward, we know that The Thursday Murder Club *was* well-viewed on Netflix, holding the #1 spot for a little while, even over the enormous KPop Demon Hunters,  Netflix’s most popular movie of all time. It’s still #2 right now.

• • One wrinkle here is that the movie changed something significant from the book at the end that may have ramifications for the next chapter. I won’t get into it, per spoilers, though I doubt it’s enough for them to throw up their hands and abandon a sequel.
  • The final issue may be cast availability. The four core members have three Oscars between them and may be too busy elsewhere to do another Netflix movie. Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan specifically are currently starring in Paramount Plus’s Mobland, one of that service’s most-viewed offerings, so they’d have to juggle that as well.
  • Then there’s the fact that even well-performing movies often claim they’ll get sequels and then nothing really comes of it, as it seems hard for those to actually come to fruition on Netflix, even if the original was well-viewed. Sometimes this works out, other times not, and we just don’t know where the coinflip will land this time.

My best guess is that a sequel will be announced, but whether it makes it out is another story. It seems like it would be a good series to add to Netflix’s arsenal, but there are a lot of competing factors involved here, and we’ll just have to see.