Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch’s assassin thriller scored high ratings in both Sky Atlantic and Peacock. NBC Universal has greenlit another season.
The Day of the Jackal will see more days as The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Peacock has renewed the thriller for another season. Our Alex Maidy enjoyed the show as he said in his review, “This grounded, realistic thriller takes time to develop the protagonist and antagonist while leaving audiences wondering which side they trust and whether they should or should not. This is not a clean-cut espionage story or even an action-oriented tale. The Day of the Jackal is a worthy modernization of the classic novel and delivers two of the year’s better performances on film or the small screen.”
According to THR, “The series drew 3 million viewers in its first week on [U.K. broadcast] Sky Atlantic, the best series debut there in two years. On Peacock, the show ranked among the top five original streaming series in the U.S. for its opening weekend, based on preliminary Nielsen data.” It’s not known yet whether stars Eddie Redmayne or Lashana Lynch will reprise their roles or if the next season will follow a new set of characters.
The globe-trotting thriller stars Eddie Redmayne as an unrivalled and highly elusive assassin known only as the Jackal, who makes his living carrying out hits for the highest fee. But following his latest kill, he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer (Lashana Lynch) who starts to track down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, leaving destruction in its wake.
The series also starred Úrsula Corberó (Snake Eyes), Charles Dance (Game of Thrones), Richard Dormer (Fortitude), Chukwudi Iwuji (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3), Lia Williams (The Crown), Khalid Abdalla (United 93), Eleanor Matsuura (The Walking Dead), and Jonjo O’Neill (Pennyworth). Ronan Bennett (Gunpowder) serves as writer and showrunner, with Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones) directing.
While speaking with Entertainment Weekly in September, Redmayne said the series will give more insight into his character than the 1973 movie was able to. “One of the things that appealed to me about doing this series was, in Edward Fox’s version — it’s two hours, that movie — Edward is so filled with charisma… and kind of wit and elegance, but you never get to learn anything about it,” Redmayne said. “I wanted to see if through this 10-hour thing, we could get to know someone, but always be second guessing.” Redmayne added that the 1973 film was “one of those movies that my family would watch again and again and again.“
“And so I thought, wow, this is bold, that they’re going to try and reimagine this. And what I read, I just found completely thrilling and compelling, and at each moment it threw me off course and it kind of discombobulated me, but I couldn’t stop turning the pages,” Redmayne said. “I hadn’t done television for a few years, but the idea of getting to spend a proper amount of time with this enigma felt like great material to mine.“
