Production company A24 has attached Jude Law to the lead role in a television series centred on Bill Shankly, the Liverpool FC manager whose tenure reshaped the club into one of football's most widely recognised names. The series carries a screenplay by Jack Thorne, who also holds the role of series creator.
Planned as a 1960s-era production, the series intends to trace Liverpool's path from a club with modest fortunes to one that built a following across multiple continents. Descriptions of the project indicate it will take a measured, fact-rooted look at Shankly's place in Liverpool FC history.
One production leans on historical documentation for its narrative foundation, while the other follows a lighter, comedic thread — yet each places a manager's guiding influence at the heart of a team's path to success.
Arriving at Liverpool FC in 1959, Shankly moved quickly to overhaul the club's structure and direction. Supporters of his legacy credit his tenure with lifting the club out of the Second Division and laying the foundation that, in their view, underpinned the team's run of sustained success.
Three First Division titles, a pair of FA Cup victories, four Charity Shield triumphs, and the UEFA Cup all came to Liverpool during the period he served as the club's manager. His role in bringing "You'll Never Walk Alone" to prominence at Anfield stands as one of his more enduring contributions to the ground's atmosphere.
What extended beyond the trophy cabinet, according to accounts of his time at the club, was the bond he built between the club and the people who followed it. The series will examine the methods behind assembling a squad that went on to earn widespread recognition across global football.
Werner, who chairs the club, has expressed a positive outlook heading into the venture. His view is that the production carries comparable audience appeal to what Netflix's The Crown achieved. Werner framed the project as an exploration of family and relationships viewed through the prism of a football club, and went on to say that a mini-series opening with Bill Shankly and tracing the club's journey could draw in wider cultural touchstones, including the Beatles.
Liverpool in the 1960s was undergoing a broader creative awakening, a period when the Beatles were climbing to worldwide prominence, and the reference draws on that cultural backdrop.
Karen Gill, a granddaughter of Shankly, is involved in the production, bringing a family dimension to the project. Her participation points to the production's aim of weaving family heritage together with the athletic record the series chronicles.
Released under the A24 label, the series enters a marketplace where stories about the personal lives of athletes have drawn steady audience interest. Shankly's tenure at Liverpool FC has been described by some historians and supporters as reshaping both the club's fortunes on the pitch and its relationship with the wider city around it.
Liverpool in the 1960s witnessed the emergence of the Beatles alongside what some historians describe as a broader shift in the city's cultural life. The A24 series places Shankly's leadership and the bonds he built within the club at its centre, positioning it to draw in football supporters and viewers who gravitate toward character-driven stories rooted in history.
Jude Law's presence as a performer and Jack Thorne's background as a playwright are expected to raise the production's profile, though the extent of their impact remains to be seen. A24's history with offbeat storytelling, the scriptwriting background Thorne has developed, and the viewership Law draws together have placed the series among the sports television productions being tracked ahead of its debut.
The move adds to A24's growing footprint in television, drawing on partnerships with notable talent for productions that push beyond conventional boundaries. Those who follow Liverpool will find in the programme a window into how the club's contemporary character took shape. Those coming to the series without prior knowledge of the subject will find that it traces a figure whose reach across the city extended beyond the pitch and into the broader cultural life of the era.
