Netflix’s big-budget adaptation of Richard Osman’s bestseller The Thursday Murder Club has started to slide down the streamer’s rankings after less than two weeks.
The cosy crime thriller, starring Dame Helen Mirren, Sir Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie and Pierce Brosnan as a group of pensioners at a retirement village investigating cold cases, was initially released in select cinemas after a lavish Leicester Square premiere on August 21.
A week later it hit the streaming platform for fans around the world to enjoy, where it went straight to the number one spot in multiple countries within hours and was praised as ‘a breath of fresh air’.
It also received a largely positive reception from critics, earning a decent score of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes from reviews – however some book fans made their displeasure clear about a major plot change, with author Osman weighing in too.
Writing in the most recent edition of his newsletter, Pointless star Osman made reference to the huge change to The Thursday Murder Club’s plot in the film and one very important character.
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As readers of the book will know, Polish handyman Bogdan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) is unmasked as the killer of victim Tony Curran (Geoff Bell) in the movie adaptation too – but here’s where everything is different.
*Spoilers below for The Thursday Murder Club book and film*
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For while in the book Bogdan is avenging the murder of his friend Kaz by Tony years prior to the events currently unfolding, his motive is entirely different in the film.
He is also arrested for the crime, whereas readers know Elizabeth (Mirren) and her husband Stephen (played by Jonathan Pryce in the film) are aware of his secret and allow him to ultimately get away with murder.
What’s more, Bogdan crops up in later novels, helping out the Thursday Murder Club with future cases – but that looks extremely unlikely to be happening with any follow-up films.
After giving fans a few days to see the film on Netflix, Osman’s newsletter began: ‘Hi gang. Let’s just deal with the movie first. I’m so glad so many of you around the world have enjoyed it so much. It hopefully means there will be more to come! You’ll be the first to know, I promise!’
He continued: ‘This is a book newsletter of course, and we’ll all be aware of some of the ‘differences’ between the film and the first book (see the title of this newsletter 😂) so I thought you’d especially like an exclusive peek at a section of the film which Chris Columbus had to cut, starring the wonderful Joseph Marcell as Father Mackie. This will also be appearing on Netflix soon, but you’re seeing it first!’
Newsletter subscribers could see that Osman had titled his email ‘#Justice4Bogdan’ in a tongue-in-cheek nod to the massive departure from the storyline, as he originally wrote it.
One fan mused on Reddit: ‘I get the impression Richard Osman also isn’t impressed with Bogdan’s ending for the film after receiving his newsletter today!’
Another chimed in: ‘Osman has always been good at toeing the line when it comes to stuff like this but I’d love to know what he really thinks of it. Honestly, even the fact that he’s willing to put that hashtag in his newsletter is quite telling.’
And disappointment with the plot change spread across social media, with Crystal M commenting on Rotten Tomatoes: ‘I loved the books and had high hopes for the movie based on the cast. Sadly, the movie wasn’t everything that it could have been, mostly due to the plot rewrite regarding Bogdan’s character.’
‘Elizabeth is the only character with any depth even though the others shine in the series – especially tragic what they did to Bogdan. A real miss,’ added Jeff W.
Another fan also bemoaned ‘the betrayal of Bogdan’, adding: ‘If you have loved the books don’t watch this, it will only make you sad.’
‘What they did to Bogdan was absolutely unbelievable, he is a central character in the upcoming movies,’ shared Waleed on X, while Louis Howley called the Bogdan arc ‘horrible and unacceptable’.
‘Loved the Thursday Murder Club – until they got to the travesty of what happened to Bogdan! #FreeBogdan’ tweeted Louise.
Bogdan’s rewrite and casting with a British actor also picked up heat from a representative linked to the Polish government.
The film was described a ‘deeply unfortunate’ and ‘a comedy of errors’ by Anna Tryc-Bromley, director of the Polish Cultural Institute, which is run by Poland’s ministry of foreign affairs.
‘It is high time to move away from presenting Poles in such a one-dimensional way, especially when the original fictional character was far more complex,’ she told The Times.
Moving on to address the lack of authentic casting, Tryc-Bromley added: ‘To make matters worse, when Helen Mirren is chatting with Bogdan about Polish cuisine, she speaks better Polish than him. For unknown reasons they didn’t even cast a Pole for the role. What a comedy of errors.’
Loyd-Hughes, 40, previously spoke about his casting as Bogdan ahead of the film’s release, defending how he’s represented in the adaptation.
‘Richard Osman is so clever at presenting a world which we easily recognise on the surface and yet, underneath it are more intriguing elements.
‘Bogdan is a complicated character, but I feel he comes from a good place and that enables you to root for him,’ he said.
The Thursday Murder Club, as of today’s latest rankings on Netflix, is now officially in third place globally, with 43.4million views overall.
It also never made it to the top spot officially, having to settle for second place in last week’s rankings, bowing down to the juggernaut of KPop Demon Hunters on its 12th week of release, which still beat it by 30.1m views to Thursday Murder Club’s 24.7m.
While its numbers sound impressive, Happy Gilmore 2 managed a record-breaking 46.7m views in its first three days on Netflix, adding a further 40.8m in its second week.
My Oxford Year was streamed 24.6m in its first three days, and rose to top spot in its second week with another 27.2m views.
The film was also reportedly shown in just around 30 cinemas in the UK, marking an extremely limited roll-out and meaning many theatres and fans missed out on the action.
The Thursday Murder Club is streaming exclusively on Netflix now.
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