One of the most popular British series ever made is coming to Netflix as a movie

Netflix has finally confirmed the news that an armada of fans has been waiting years for –  it will make a Peaky Blinders movie and, crucially, Cillian Murphy is on board.

In fact, he'll not just star as Tommy Shelby – but will also be a producer on the movie, which should be music to fans' ears. 

Netflix announced the news this week in the form of a stylised shot of the movie's script, and also confirmed that it'll be written by series creator Steven Knight and longtime director Tom Harper – two old hands on the franchise. 

It was accompanied by a short quote from Cillian Murphy: "It seems like Tommy Shelby wasn’t finished with me… It is very gratifying to be recollaborating with Steven Knight and Tom Harper on the film version of Peaky Blinders. This is one for the fans."

This still leaves us with a huge number of unknowns, though, from the actual title of the film, to when it might start shooting – let alone streaming. It is likely to be at least a couple of years until you're able to sit down and actually watch this movie we reckon.

The news confirms something that was already relatively evident, though: Peaky Blinders has been one of the big breakouts of British television from the last decade or so in terms of international audiences.

That's been down in part to its availability through Netflix, which isn't the only platform trying to position itself as the best streaming service for fans of British TV – Disney's now doing the same as the co-producer of Doctor Who. 

It was also a series that maintained its quality throughout – the thus-far final sixth season is sitting on a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, after all. A movie, rather than a seventh season, had been talked about for years, but the film and TV business is fickle, and this is the first concrete confirmation that it's actually happening. 

The finale of that last season was explosive and seemed fairly conclusive, so it'll be interesting to see how the pieces are picked up – and, in particular, which characters will be back in the mixer given how things unfolded. If that sounds vague, and you haven't yet caught the whole series, be sure to check it out on Netflix to catch yourself up.