What you need to know about Peaky Blinders Season 4 with the latest casting news and storylines!
Peaky Blinders Season 4 will see the Shelby crime clan unleashing another salvo of chaos. Showcasing an impressive cast and a wonderfully grimy early 20th century urban aesthetic, the series has not only become a hit in its native U.K. on BBC Two, but is also achieving praise in the U.S. where the series has evolved from an oddly-named curiosity on the Netflix queues of American viewers into highly anticipated destination television.
Back in May of 2016, the BBC officially announced the renewal of Peaky Blinders for Season/Series 4 and 5 for BBC Two. This utmost vote of confidence came shortly after weekly U.K. airings of Series 3 episodes had started to air. Consequently, the fruits of this development will eventually be enjoyed in the U.S., allowing American viewers to binge the latest episode crop in their entirety.
Peaky Blinders Season 4 Latest News
Adrien Brody will be the latest addition to the Peaky Blinders cast, per Deadline. While Brody is playing a role that is still very much a secret, creator Steven Knight tells the trade that, “He genuinely was the actor in my head when I wrote the part. I’m sure he will be a formidable presence in the world of the Peaky Blinders.”
Brody, the 2003 Best Actor Oscar winner for The Pianist, is of course, is yet another high-profile coup for the series. The actor has tread paths across the genres, known to be a recurring player for Wes Anderson in comedies such as The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Grand Budapest Hotel. He’s also had his share onscreen action in Peter Jackson’s King Kong, Predators and the Hollywood star-stacked Chinese production Dragon Blade, also fielding a noteworthy small-screen run starring as the titular magician in the 2014 History Channel miniseries Houdini.
Peaky Blinders Season 4 Cast
Expect the whole gang to return.
Cillian Murphy will be back as family head Thomas "Tommy" Shelby. Helen McCrory, Paul Anderson, Joe Cole, Sophie Rundle, Finn Cole, Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Kate Phillips make their return, joined by Natasha O’Keefe and Packy Lee. Additionally, Tom Hardy also returns to field his tenuous relationship with the Shelby clan as the Machiavellian Jewish gangster boss Alfie Solomons.
Samuel L. Jackson might just bring his brand of ass-kicking cacophony. On a sidenote that’s dismissible as speculation, Jackson, the busiest man in show business, recently told the UK’s Daily Star that he was pondering a run on British television, specifically on Peaky Blinders. Jackson told the London-based tabloid, “I want to do some British TV. I’d love to be in Peaky Blinders. That’s a great show.”
Peaky Blinders Season 4 and 5 Renewal
While the decision to renew Peaky Blinders not just once, but twice over is obviously a welcome one to its increasing international fanbase, it’s certainly one that came under a curious context. By the time Series 3 rounded the finish line of its BBC Two broadcast run, the series had (for reasons we can only theorize,) started to see a weekly hemorrhaging of ratings. While the season's performance in the U.S. on Netflix remains (as usual for the outlet,) unconfirmed, it was well-received and the show's popularity seems to be growing.
Indeed, it does seem possible that the BBC’s renewal-happy zeal might be motivated by the show’s ever-expanding global presence. Besides its aforementioned Weinstein-distributed American streaming surge on Netflix, Peaky Blinders has reportedly been sold in 163 countries. Thus, even if U.K. viewers might be finding themselves knackered by the criminal exploits of the Shelby clan, the show seems to be a shiny new toy to mainstream audiences across the globe.
Peaky Blinders Season 4 Story
“Season 4 will kick off when Tommy receives a mysterious letter on Christmas Eve and realizes the Peaky Blinders are in danger of annihilation. As the enemy closes in, he flees his country house and returns to the streets of Small Heath, Birmingham where a desperate fight for survival begins.”
This preview, however, glosses over the colossal cliffhanger event of Season 3, which saw an earnest attempt by Shelby family members, Arthur, John, Michael and Polly to keep Tommy’s kidnapped toddler son safe with the killing of a corrupt criminal priest and an unnecessarily explosive act of train terrorism. However, rather than helping the family escape to America as planned, the inevitable arrival of the police saw Tommy – motivated by reasons unknown – essentially hand his family over to the long arm of the law, watching as they are taken off in trucks. As star Cillian Murphy explained in a BBC interview last June:
"I think his family think that he's betrayed them, and it will be up to Tommy to demonstrate to them that he hasn't betrayed them, and that he has a bigger plan. The question is what that bigger plan is. Who is he going to call? What's going to happen to the family? Can he ever get that level of trust or love back again?" Adding, “I think he will never stop. Because of what happened to him in the First World War, I think it's never going to stop. He'll just always be this man searching for something. I think that even if he achieved all this material wealth and he achieves some sort of position of power… I don't see him retiring with a pipe and slippers, that's for sure."
Tommy, a ruthless gangster by trade, continues to walk the line of maintaining strength in the criminal underworld with his desire to establish legitimacy and respect for his family and businesses. However, circumstances always seem to pull in the former direction.
Peaky Blinders Season 4 Premiere Date
There’s no official word yet regarding when we can expect the return of Peaky Blinders for Seasons 4 in the U.K. or the U.S. However, production has quite evidently commenced as of March 2017 with set photos regularly surfacing. Consequently, a premiere sometime in the fall of 2017 seems feasible.