Sky's 'The Iris Affair' Opens Wide to Include Multiple A-Listers

Fans of Luther are still hoping that series star Idris Elba and creator Neil Cross will manage to work out a deal to make a sequel to Netflix's well-received 2023 film, Luther: The Fallen Sun. But until schedules magically align (and Netflix decides to hand over some money), fans will have to be content with Cross's newest series, The Iris Affair, which will debut on the premium streaming service/pay channel Sky in 2025.

Initially titled Iris, the Cross series was first announced in May 2024 when Sky commissioned production with stars Niamh Algar (Playing Nice) and Tom Hollander (Us). Algar stars as the titular Iris Nixon (or the Iris of the Affair, if you will), described as "equal parts rootless genius and puzzle addict," who works the traumatizing and thankless job of flagging harmful content for a social media platform. When she solves an unbreakable code, it leads her to the sun-drenched area of Florence, where she discovers the code she cracked may be heading into the wrong hands. Like any sensible, extremely online sleuth, Iris does the only practical thing: she steals it and disappears.

When the series was announced initially, Cross said, “All I wanted to do was to make a show I wanted to watch. Iris is an unapologetically exciting, witty, chase-driven adventure show and features a lead character the like of which I don't think we've ever met before on TV.”