We were excited to learn back in 2020 about the potential for a new Life on Mars series, reuniting John Simm’s Sam Tyler with Philip Glenister’s Gene Hunt for Lazarus.
But it seems things have slowed down following the initial excitement. Speaking at the press launch of ITV’s Grace in which he stars, Simm said “These things move slower than tectonic plates.”
While enthusing about the project and working with his former co-stars, Simm stated “I have no idea [when we’ll be doing it]. It’s in some development hell somewhere. Someone’s got it and they want to do it and the script was great and we said yes. But now it’s just taking forever. We’d love to do it, that would be amazing, but the wait is interminable!”
One key thing to note is that the show is almost certainly not going out on BBC.
Co-creator Matthew Graham recently tweeted (via production company Twitter account) about the slow pace of the new show.
We discussed Lazarus and why now is the best time to (re)discover Life on Mars in the Kasterborous podcast.
The third season of Grace kicks off on ITV1 this Sunday, 19th March.