Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan to lead ‘The Thursday Murder Club’

Actors Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, and Pierce Brosnan are set to star in The Thursday Murder Club, with Chris Columbus attached to write and direct, reported Deadline.

The film is based on British TV personality and producer Richard Osman's novel of the same name.

Osman announced the news on his podcast, The Rest is Entertainment. Amblin Entertainment, Steven Spielberg's production company, is producing it. The plot revolves around a group of elderly buddies at a retirement home who assemble to solve murders for fun but wind up becoming involved in a real-life case.

Mirren will play ex-spy Elizabeth, Kingsley will play ex-psychiatrist Ibrahim, and Brosnan will portray former union activist Ron. Negotiations for an actress to play the fourth member of the gang, Joyce, are still underway. Filming will begin in the UK at the end of June and run through to September, said Osman.

Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire, and Harry Potter director Columbus is directing and adapting Osman's best-selling book for the big screen. Osman's novel has sold over 10 million copies and inspired multiple sequel novels. He sold the rights to The Thursday Murder Club to Spielberg in 2020, and the project has been underway since then.

Osman is best known as a British TV presenter on a game show Pointless and Richard Osman's House of Games. He has numerous appearances on UK comedy shows such as 8 Out of Ten Cats Does Countdown. Before his on-screen career, he was a well-known entertainment television executive, working at Hat Trick Productions and Big Brother producer Endemol UK, where he was Creative Director and produced the likes of Deal or No Deal. He officially left the company in 2020, when it was known as Endemol Shine UK.