Richard Osman Raised Red Flags Over Thursday Murder Club Plot Changes — Repeatedly
Even Osman doubted it at first—until the numbers hit his desk. His pivot is now reshaping the debate.
Netflix dropped The Thursday Murder Club last month, and book fans immediately pulled out the magnifying glass. Not exactly shocking that a 350-ish page mystery didn’t get a page-for-page transfer, but some changes hit nerves. If you know, you know: the Bogdan chatter was loud.
Osman on the tweaks: he pushed back a bit, then let the pros cook
Author Richard Osman popped up on ITV’s This Morning earlier this week, where host Ben Shephard brought up how fiercely readers protect these characters. When asked if he ever told the filmmakers, basically, are you sure about this, Osman admitted he did raise that flag a couple of times. Then he shrugged and pointed to the people steering the ship — yes, including producer Steven Spielberg — as a reason to trust the process.
"Ask me if producer Steven Spielberg listened. They know what they’re doing, they made E.T. I didn’t make E.T."
Books vs movie: two different lanes, by design
Osman’s take is pretty sane: the film doesn’t replace the novels, it sits next to them. His version lives in the books — that’s the thing he poured his heart into, and it’ll still be there in a hundred years. He’s not interested in adapting his own work because, in his view, he already did it once on the page. So you hand it to talented people and let them do a tight, two-hour version. If you stuffed in everything from the book, you’d be watching hours of Joyce’s diary asides and everyone would tune out. Adapters have to make choices he wouldn’t always make himself — and he thinks that’s part of the fun.
The fan debate, in plain English
Yes, the first book isn’t reproduced verbatim. Yes, specific plot points got reshuffled, which is why Bogdan became a lightning rod. That’s the adaptation game: compress, combine, and sometimes reframe. Osman knows some of those choices sting for purists, but he’s made peace with it.
- The movie hit Netflix last month, and changes to the story (especially around Bogdan) kicked up debate.
- On This Morning, Osman said he did question a couple of decisions but ultimately deferred to the filmmakers.
- He joked that Spielberg didn’t exactly take marching orders from him, and that the E.T. pedigree speaks for itself.
- His philosophy: the books are his version forever; the film is a separate interpretation built to fit a two-hour runtime.
- Bottom line: expect differences by design — the adaptation is its own thing.
The Thursday Murder Club is streaming on Netflix now.