Introduction

The Day of the Jackal is a British spy thriller television series, based on the Frederick Forsyth novel 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 series.

Outline

The conspirators and Ulle scramble to keep their plans on track after the assassination attempt. Bianca turns back to the Alexander Duggan theory. Kirby lobbies Foreign Secretary Jeremy Whitelock to declassify Duggan’s Army file. Nuria sees a news broadcast with the identikit image of the Jackal and calls him, realising that he is an assassin. Bianca visits Larry in prison, but he commits suicide in front of her. Halcrow is detained on suspicion of being the mole. In flashbacks, the Jackal, revealed to be Duggan, is a sniper in a squad arresting and eliminating Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. Alexander and his spotter, Gary, travel to Cyprus to undertake a freelance assassination on the British-controlled military base at Akrotiri. An operation to arrest a senior Taliban leader goes awry when Duggan’s squad massacres a wedding party and covers it up. Disgusted by their war crimes, Duggan kills the squad with a car bomb, save for Gary, and fakes his death.

The Day of the Jackal Series

You can find an overview and episode guide for The Day of the Jackal here.

Remakes

• The Day of the Jackal (1973): A political thriller film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Edward Fox and Michael Lonsdale.
  • Based on the 1971 novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth, the film is about a professional assassin known only as the “Jackal” who is hired to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle in the summer of 1963.
• August 1 (1988): An Indian Malayalam-language film directed by Sibi Malayil, written by S.N. Swamy, and starring Mammootty, Sukumaran, Captain Raju and Urvashi.
  • This adaptation relocates the story to the Indian state of Kerala.
• The Jackal (1997): An American film directed by Michael Caton-Jones, written by Chuck Pfarrer, and starring Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier and Diane Venora.
  • Forsyth, Woolf, Zinnemann and Fox opposed the production and filed an injunction to prevent Universal Pictures from using the name of the original novel and film, and it would be marketed as being “inspired by” rather than directly based on Forsyth’s novel.
  • The film does not credit Forsyth’s novel as source material, and only credits Kenneth Ross with “earlier screenplay.”

Production & Filming Details

• Release Date: 28 November 2024.
• Running Time: 46-61 minutes (per episode).
• Rating: TV-MA.
• Country: UK.
• Language: English.

Video Link(s)