Fans of The Wire and Luther star Idris Elba, prepare to fasten your seatbelts for this seven-episode tense thriller coming to Apple TV+. Hijack will be the British heartthrob’s first executive production from his Green Door Pictures first-look deal with the streaming service. Told in real time, Hijack chronicles the seven-hour flight to London wherein Sam Nelson (Elba), an ordinary passenger who is also an accomplished business negotiator, after their plane gets hijacked while authorities on the ground scramble to find answers. According to the logline, Elba’s character’s high-risk strategy to save lives could, in fact, backfire at any moment. The series is being written by George Kay (Criminal and Killing Eve) and will be directed by Jim Field Smith (Criminal).
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Apple TV+ announced on Thursday that Archie Panjabi had joined the cast. The actress won an Emmy for her portrayal of Kalinda Sharma on CBS’s The Good Wife. She will play Zahra Gahfoor, a counter-terrorism officer on the ground when the plane gets hijacked and becomes a part of the investigation.
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Behind Idris Elba’s Green Door Are Projects Galore
Founded in 2013 by Idris Elba, Green Door Pictures offers an array of entertaining, thought-provoking and innovative projects. There is a full slate of scripted and non-scripted ventures including film, television, podcasts and digital. For example, in his BBC Two show Fight School, Elba help turn around the lives of young people through the discipline of boxing while building their confidence. The actor drew from his own experiences of boxing as a young man. The 49-year-old said:
Although Elba will be starring in Hijack, he had recently announced that he would be scaling back from acting to focus on his music career. Being versatile indeed has its perks. As DJ Big Driss, Elba regularly performs sets at major festivals, including the 2019 Coachella Music and Arts Festival.
“When I was young, I joined a boxing club, and my trainer Joe took me under his wing. It was a real turning point in my life, teaching me discipline and control moving forward.”
Idris Elba can be seen later this year starring alongside Tilda Swinton in the fantasy romance film Three Thousand Years of Longing which was directed by George Miller of the Mad Max franchise. He will also return to the small screen in Netflix’s feature adaption of the hit crime drama Luther. No other casting has been fleshed out yet or a release date set for Hijack, but any film of Elba’s will appeal to a broad audience and fans will eagerly await future content stemming from his partnership with Apple TV+.
