‘Luther: The Fallen Sun’ Ending Explained: What It Could Mean for Future ‘Luther’ Movies

Idris Elba is back as John Luther in Luther: The Fallen Sun, a new movie that serves as a continuation of the BBC series, which began streaming on Netflix today. Elba has been donning the signature coat of that brilliant, grizzled detective for over a decade now, ever since the first season of the British crime drama aired in 2010.

You might think that Luther creator Neil Cross, who also wrote the movie, would be running out of ideas by this point. But in an interview for the Luther press notes, Cross said he always wanted to tell a Luther story via a movie, rather an TV show. “We worked incredibly hard to make the TV show as ambitious and cinematic as we possibly could, but it was always my passionate conviction that John Luther was just far bigger than the limits of the medium allowed us to be,” he said.

And, if the movie’s final moments are any indication, Cross has no intention of shutting the door on even more cinematic stories featuring John Luther in the future. Here’s what that Luther: The Fallen Sun ending could mean for future Luther movies.

Luther The Fallen Sun ending explained:

Without spoiling too much of the movie for those who haven’t watched it yet, The Fallen Sun ending implies that we may see Detective John Luther working on even bigger, more ambitious cases in the future. In The Fallen Sun, Luther is briefly imprisoned, thanks to an enemy who digs up dirt on all his broken rules, regulations, and questionable ethics as a cop. Because he’s Luther, he breaks out of prison and spends much of the film as a wanted fugitive.

At the end of the movie, after Luther has saved the day and successfully taken down the serial killer, he’s taken to a government safe house. His friend and former boss, Martin Schenk (Dermot Crowley), tells him he won’t be going back to prison. Instead, Martin believes that the government has a job offer for Luther. Several fancy government cars pull up to the safe house, and a man in a suit gets out and congratulates Luther, unofficially, on a job well done.

“So, now what?” Luther asks the man in a suit.

“Chief would like a word,” the man replies, gesturing to the car behind him. Luther slowly approaches the car, though we never see the man who wants to speak to him. With that, the movie ends.

What does it mean? Well, “Chief” presumably refers to the British Prime Minister, or, at least, someone very high up in the British government. We can only assume this means that Luther is about to get a very important criminal case to investigate, and will operate at the highest level of the law—possibly working with MI5 or MI6. It’s pretty clearly leaving the door open for another Luther movie.

Will there be a Luther: The Fallen Sun sequel?

There is no official word on another Luther movie, but in an interview with Zavvi blog, Luther creator and screenwriter Neil Cross hinted that he was already thinking about what comes next for John Luther, and addressed that ambiguous ending.

“We always tell complete stories – but there’s also always a crooked finger leaving the door open, warning John Luther that something could be waiting for him,” Cross said, “I don’t yet know what his return will look like, but there is one thing I can guarantee you right now, on the record: That return is not going to be a light-hearted musical comedy.”

In an interview for The Fallen Sun press notes, Cross also hinted that, should there be another Luther movie, fans might get to see the return of Ruth Wilson as Alice Morgan. (Wilson does not appear in The Fallen Sun.) When asked if Wilson might someday appear in “future films,” Cross said. “Well, we’re an extended family and Ruth Wilson is an important part of it. It’s a family I care about very much. So… who knows?”

So while Cross hasn’t said in so many words that there will be another Luther movie, you’ll note that he isn’t correcting the assumption that there will be one. It likely depends on how well the movie does for Netflix. For now, we’ll have to wait and see.

Will there be a Luther Season 6?

How about, instead of another movie, another season of the show, aka Luther Season 6? Again, we have no official information on this. But it seems that Cross is, at least currently, leaning more toward another Luther movie than he is toward Luther Season 6.

In a 2020 interview Cross said, “There is not going to be a season six — definitively no season six. Instead, Cross alluded to the Netflix movie that just came out today.

Never say never, but right now, it seems more likely that we’ll see John Luther back in another film than in another season of the BBC show.