The Thursday Murder Club movie director Chris Columbus has explained why he had to cut a Ted Lasso star's appearance.
The cast of the film adaptation of Richard Osman's debut novel features Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Sir Ben Kingsley, David Tennant, Celie Imrie, Daniel Mays and Naomi Ackie in its cast.
Sarah Niles, who played team psychologist Dr Sharon Fieldstone in Ted Lasso, was part of the cast, as Donna (Ackie)'s mum Patrice.
Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy, Columbus explained that he had to remove the only scene she appeared in, as it gave audiences the wrong implication about two characters.
"In the montage at the end of the film – I don't think I'm spoiling anything – you see various cuts of the Thursday Murder Club and there was a scene shot of Chris Hudson arriving at Donna's door and meeting her mother for the first time," Columbus explained.
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"I actually had to cut the scene because the audience who saw the film thought that Chris was actually meeting Donna and taking her on a date.
"It stopped them for a moment and I thought I don't want the audience to feel that anything creepy is going on."
Not only are Chris and Donna co-workers, but Chris actually has a romance with Patrice in the books, so it was extra important to avoid giving the wrong impression.
Related: The Thursday Murder Club film review
"You hope that if we do another one, that relationship is obviously waiting there in the wings to be discovered," Mays added.
"It is such a lovely part of the book," Ackie said, "and I hope, as you say, that we can tell more of all of their stories and expand on it."
The Thursday Murder Club will be released on Netflix on Thursday (28 August).
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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
