Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is Netflix’s number one film and writer Steven Knight has revealed a fan-favourite character nearly made a surprise comeback
Peaky Blinders film almost brought back Tom Hardy for massive twist(Image: BBC)
Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight has revealed he scrapped a massive twist that would have brought back Tom Hardy’s iconic character Alfie Solomons.
The Venom star portrayed the Jewish cockney crime lord of Camden from the hit drama’s second season on and had a complex relationship with the Birmingham gangsters.
After being shot in the head by Tommy Shelby (played by Cillian Murphy) on Margate beach, Alfie makes brief appearances in the fifth and sixth seasons of the hit BBC series.
Some fans may have been disappointed that Hardy didn’t make an appearance in Netflix’s new film The Immortal Man, which sees Tommy returning to Small Heath to take on his estranged son, Erasmus ‘Duke’ Shelby (Barry Keoghan), who has taken over the gang.
However, Knight has since revealed he originally considered the possibility of Alfie making an appearance – and it would have been a massive twist on the fate of the character.
“I had an idea, which I haven’t really spoken about,” he shared with the Hollywood Reporter.
“Ever since he was shot on the beach at Margate [in season four], you’ve only ever seen Tommy and Alfie together alone.”
The fifth season reveals that Alfie had actually survived the gunshot wound to the face after Hardy lobbied Knight to bring him back.
But, as Tommy regularly glimpses the ghosts of his past, including the lingering image of his first wife Grace (Annabelle Wallis), Knight briefly considered revealing that Solomons was simply another apparition Tommy had been communing with.
“I thought, maybe [Alfie] appears, and we realise he’s been dead all that time,” Knight went on.
“Now, I nearly did that, and I didn’t do it, but that was a thought.”
Hardy’s demanding schedule may have also contributed to Knight’s decision not to bring him back, as the star has recently been filming the Paramount+ crime drama MobLand since the end of Peaky Blinders.
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Thankfully, there is still a chance, albeit a slim one, that fans could see Alfie return alongside some other Peaky favourites as the series will be returning for at least two more series on Netflix and the BBC.
Knight confirmed that Duke will be appearing in the upcoming follow-up, which is set in post-WWII Birmingham, though it’s currently unknown if Keoghan will be reprising the role.
He also teased: “Some of the characters that are in [The Immortal Man] will appear in that. But I’m under strict instructions not to talk about it except to say that it’s happening.”
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is available to stream on Netflix.