EXCLUSIVE: Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott are back in business as cameras are set to roll on Season 6 of JK Rowling‘s Strike later this month.
Deadline hears that the BBC and HBO detective drama will begin principal photography on February 12, with Tom Burke reprising his role as a war veteran turned private detective. Holliday Grainger is also back as Strike’s business partner.
The BBC is yet to confirm the Season 6 renewal, but is expected to make an announcement later this month. Brontë Film and TV, the company established to adapt Rowling’s books, is producing. HBO is back on board after co-producing Season 5, with Cinemax involved in previous seasons.
Strike is based on novels by Rowling’s pseudonym Robert Galbraith. Season 6 will adapt The Ink Black Heart, which has echoes of Rowling’s own experience of being caught up in the culture wars.
It centers on the murder of a successful YouTube animator after she becomes the target of relentless online hate. At one point, Edie Ledwell is accused of being transphobic.
Rowling has been clear that the character is not based on her own life, but recognizes that she experienced similar online hate during and after writing the novel, published in August 2022. “I wasn’t clairvoyant… it was just one of those weird twists. Sometimes life imitates art more than one would like,” she said.
The BBC was forced to apologize to Rowling twice last year after guests on news shows accused her of being transphobic. On both occasions, the BBC said the broadcasts fell short of its editorial standards.
On Wednesday, Rowling posted a picture of the Strike: The Ink Black Heart episode one script on Twitter, now known as X. It was penned by Tom Edge, who has written on the past four seasons of Strike. “It’s been a fun day,” Rowling said.
Season 5, Strike: Troubled Blood, premiered in December 2022 with a strong 8M viewers for BBC1. It went on to average 6.9M over the course of its four-part series.
Seven Strike novels have been published under Galbraith’s name, with the most recent book titled The Running Grave. Rowling said on X that she was “getting on very well” with the eighth novel.