The Day of the Jackal (TV series)

The Day of the Jackal is a British spy thriller television series, based on the Frederick Forsyth novel and 1973 film of the same name. It stars Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch. It is written and created by Ronan Bennett, produced by Christopher Hall and directed by Brian Kirk, Anthony Philipson, Paul Wilmshurst and Anu Menon. The first series began airing in November 2024. That same month, it was renewed for a second season.
The Day of the Jackal received positive reviews from critics and received two Golden Globe Award nominations, Best Television Series – Drama and Best Actor for Redmayne.
Reimagined into a contemporary political setting, this series is based on a popular novel which centres on a ruthless British assassin, known only as “the Jackal", and the intelligence officer intent on capturing him.
The project for Carnival Films with Sky and Peacock was announced in November 2022. The screenwriter Ronan Bennett was set as writer and showrunner, with Brian Kirk as the lead director, followed by Anthony Philipson, Paul Wilmshurst and Anu Menon. Charles Cumming, Jessica Sinyard and Shyam Popat joined the writer's room in July 2022. Christopher Hall produced all episodes, while Forsyth served as consulting producer. Eddie Redmayne, Lashana Lynch, Ronan Bennett, Gareth Neame, Nigel Marchant and Marianne Buckland are executive producers. The series is a reimagining of the source text in a modern setting, with Redmayne describing it as "a completely different piece" that has "been reconceived and contemporised with a new target". The series also gives more of an insight into the Jackal as a protagonist and Redmayne said he chose the project because "the idea of getting to spend a proper amount of time with this enigma felt like great material to mine".
On 22 November 2024, the programme was renewed for a second series.
Redmayne was revealed to be in the cast in March 2023. In June 2023, Lashana Lynch joined the cast. Additional casting including Úrsula Corberó, Charles Dance, Richard Dormer and Chukwudi Iwuji was announced in February 2024.
Filming for the series, taking place in four countries and expected to last seven months, was started in June 2023. The shoot began in Budapest, Hungary and its neighbouring regions. Filming took place in Vienna in July 2023. Filming took place in the autumn of 2023 in Croatia. Croatian locations include Rijeka, Pag, Opatija, and the central Istrian region. The external shots of The Jackal's property were filmed in Rabac, Croatia.
The ten-episode series premiered on 7 November 2024, airing in the United Kingdom on Sky Atlantic and Now, and streaming on Peacock in the United States. NBCUniversal Global Distribution distributes the series internationally outside of Sky's markets, airing through its agreements with Foxtel (Australia), Showcase (Canada), JioCinema (India), Showmax (Africa), TVNZ+ (New Zealand), Disney+ (Latin America) and SkyShowtime (Europe) among others. Subsequent episodes were released weekly, concluding on 12 December. NBC broadcast the pilot on US television on 30 December 2024 even though they have no intention of showing the rest of the series, for free, on the network-.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, The Day of the Jackal has an approval rating of 85% with an average rating of 7.6/10, based on 52 reviews. The website's consensus reads: "A globetrotting thriller made eerily plausible by Eddie Redmayne's reptilian performance, The Day of the Jackal turns dark deeds into good fun." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 72 out of 100 based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it three and a half out of four stars, saying, "From Eddie Redmayne as the titular character to the gorgeous and expansive location shoots in London, Budapest, Vienna and Croatia to the major action set pieces ... Clichéd as it might be to say this, each of the 10 chapters is more like a movie than an episode of television. [...] This is one big small-screen thriller."
Writing for The Guardian, Rebecca Nicholson gave it four out of five stars, calling it "a taut, lean drama that makes the most out of its acting talent and lays the foundations for a whole lot of well‑executed action. Watching the Jackal carry out his assignments and get away with his audacious plans – despite terrible odds to the contrary – is genuinely exciting. Even though you know he is probably not going to get caught, every checkpoint has you holding your breath, just in case he messes up."
David Fear of Rolling Stone praised the two leads, but felt the show's runtime was bloated, writing, "[Redmayne is] one of the best things about this updated Jackal, especially when the series slows down to procedural speed and simply observes the professional killer researching his jobs, scouting locations, shooting target practice. It also benefits from giving him a worthy adversary in the form of Lashana Lynch, who’s a master thief when it comes to stealing scenes. [...] Had The Day of the Jackal kept its eyes on the prize that is the predator/prey/pursuer plotline, it could have been prestige-pulp gold. Instead, it gilds the lily with unnecessary backstory and peripheral melodrama allegedly designed to “flesh out” characters, and you’re left with an epic amount of gorgeous, globetrotting Mid TV."