Idris Elba Is Trying To Buy One Of The Biggest Networks
He's more than just a pretty face.
Idris Elba is currently in talks to make a significant business venture, supporting Miroma’s bid to buy British broadcaster Channel 4. The bid is said to be about £1 billion ($1.2 billion). The joint bid includes Mark Boyan, who founded the Miroma Group. This would be a huge addition to Elba’s business assets, which currently include his production company Green Door Pictures. Channel 4 is currently a state-owned channel, so this acquisition would presumably make it a privately owned channel. Elba and Miroma will have to beat out other bidders that include ITV, Comcast, Paramount, Discovery, and French company Vivendi.
Idris Elba’s Green Door Pictures production company is currently in a deal to produce new content for Apple. The company already has several series and movies under its belt, including Turn Up Charlie, In the Long Run, and Concrete Charlie. Elba and his wife, Sabrina Dhowre, were also reported to be working on an Afrofuturist animated series for the anime streaming platform Crunchyroll.
Of course, Idris Elba’s business dealings haven’t slowed down his acting career whatsoever. In 2022 alone, he appeared in the blockbuster Sonic the Hedgehog 2 voicing Knuckles the Echidna. He is also starring in the George Miller-directed Three Thousand Years of Longing, which tells the story of a scholar getting three wishes from a Djinn. Elba stars as the djinn opposite Tilda Swinton’s scholar. That movie will be coming out in August. He has another movie coming out in August called Beast, where he’ll play a father trying to protect his two daughters from a vicious lion in the Savanna. Baltasar Kormakur directs with a story by Jamie Primak Sullivan and a script by Ryan Engle. Elba is starring alongside Iyana Halley, Leah Jeffries, and Sharlto Copley.
Finally, Idris Elba will wrap up the year by reprising one of the roles that helped make him a household name in Hollywood, with a feature film inspired by the TV series Luther. Elba will return as Detective John Luther, with further plot details being kept under wraps. It will be a direct follow-up to the events of the TV series, which ended in 2019. Elba also serves as an executive producer on the movie. It will be directed by Jamie Payne and written by Neil Cross. The cast list includes Andy Serkis, Cynthia Erivo, Dermot Crowley, Natasha Patel, and more. There isn’t a set release date for the Luther film now, but it’s expected to come out before the end of the year.
If Idris Elba does manage to close this deal with Miroma and Channel 4, it will be interesting to see how involved he is with the content produced for the previously state-owned channel. It could just be an investment option for Elba, or it could be a new avenue to create more projects. Elba started his Green Door Pictures production company to foster diversity and inclusion in the UK film and television industry. A deal this massive could help Elba bring diverse storytelling to the UK television industry on an even larger scale. With the British government eager to sell the channel, we’ll likely find out who the new owner will be soon enough.
