Dame Helen Mirren, Sir Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan and Celia Imrie in The Thursday Murder Club

After spending almost a week at the top of Netflix’s most-watched film ranking, it’s safe to say viewers have been flocking to stream the long-awaited screen adaptation of Richard Osman’s best-selling mystery novel The Thursday Murder Club.

The cosy murder mystery movie features a star-studded cast led by Dame Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Sir Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie, who play a group of retired, amateur sleuths who dedicate their spare time to solving cold murder cases.

Critical reaction to the film has been somewhat positive, and it seems there may already be a very real possibility of sequels in the future.

If you were among those charmed by The Thursday Murder Club – which also features the likes of Naomi Ackie, David Tennant and Daniel Mays among its A-list cast – you’ll probably find the many tidbits from behind the scenes just as interesting…

The Thursday Murder Club’s director quickly noticed parallels between his latest film and his work on Harry Potter

In case you weren’t aware, The Thursday Murder Club was helmed by Chris Columbus, the man behind the camera of hugely popular movies like Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire and the first two Harry Potter films.

And as it turns out, the casting process for this movie was surprisingly similar to the beloved wizarding franchise. That’s because all of his first choices for The Thursday Murder Club cast said yes immediately.

Harry Potter director Chris Columbus on the set of The Chamber Of Secrets with Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe

“On Harry Potter, there was no convincing to be done. Maybe a little convincing with Richard Harris, but only because it was his granddaughter who convinced him to do it,” he explained to Town & Country. “But [for The Thursday Murder Club], all of our first choices said yes, that hasn’t happened to me in 20 years.”

And that wasn’t the only way this experience resembled his time working on the adaptation of JK Rowling’s iconic books. “When I read The Thursday Murder Club, I got that feeling that I had when I first read Harry Potter,” he told Games Radar.

Chris Columbus wanted to create the ’Hogwarts’ of retirement communities for The Thursday Murder Club

Chris made sure to tap into all that Harry Potter experience on his CV, as he explained in a press briefing for the film how he wanted the ornate Coopers Chase retirement village to be the “the Hogwarts version of a retirement community”, according to House Beautiful.

He wanted it to not only be a beautiful space with stunning architecture, but an aspirational place that people actually wanted to go to.

“We wanted Coopers Chase to be a sort of wish fulfillment retirement community, somewhere that audiences who saw the movie would say ‘I’d love to spend the last 15 to 20 years of my life in a place like this’,” he shared.

Chris Columbus was hoping to recreate some of his Harry Potter magic with the exteriors he picked for The Thursday Murder Club

Unsurprising, the Coopers Chase setting is already a very popular filming location

If Coopers Chase did exactly what director Chris intended and made old age seem rather appealing to you, we totally get it. The stately home is actually an Elizabethan country estate called Englefield House (the grounds of which include the church where Pippa Middleton got married), which has also featured in The Crown, Masters Of........

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