Spielberg’s Bestselling Writer Richard Osman Plans New Crime Series “Like The Da Vinci Code”

Richard Osman, the British TV presenter turned author who broke records with his debut novel The Thursday Murder Club, has revealed plans for a brand new crime series – like The Da Vinci Code.

This will be music to the ears of both Osman’s publishers and whoever scoops up the movie rights. The Da Vinci Code sold 84million copies when it was published in 2003 and the film took $760million at the box office on its release at 2006.

Osman, who has sold the film rights of his first novel to Steven Spielberg, has a deal to write four novels in The Thursday Murder Club series – the first was released in 2020 and broke UK sales records for a debut novel, and the second also sat at the top of the fiction chart when it was released last year. A third will be published this September.

Now Osman, who has given up his regular presenting gig on daytime quiz show Pointless to concentrate on writing, has told the BBC he plans to start a completely different series, “a sort of Thursday Murder Club meets The Da Vinci Code.”

“I thought, I’d love a quite funny, quite smart, Da Vinci Code,” he told the BBC.

“I’d love one of those books that’s a caper around the world, but that also has some truth about the world, and also makes you laugh and has also has some of the aesthetic of Thursday Murder Club, but it’s Da Vinci Code. And I couldn’t quite find one.

“So I thought I’d quite like to do that – a sort of Thursday Murder Club meets The Da Vinci Code.”