Peaky Blinders' Creator Is Responsible For One Of The Greatest Game Shows Ever

British screenwriter and director Steven Knight practically changed his career path overnight after creating "Peaky Blinders" for the BBC. A period crime drama, the series takes place in the early part of the 20th century and follows the fictional exploits of a real, historical Irish street gang called the Peaky Blinders. Comprised of a group of thugs who ruled the streets of Birmingham, England, the show chronicles a fictionalized version of their rise from a simple gang of tough guys to one of the most infamous criminal syndicates in British history.

With a star-studded cast led by Cillian Murphy, "Peaky Blinders" was one of the BBC's biggest hits of the 2010s, a show filled with bare-knuckled brawls, fiery shootouts, and plenty of blood. With its reputation as a critically acclaimed crime drama, it's easy to think that such shows are Knight's bread and butter. So it might come as a surprise to learn that Knight is also the creator of "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire," the TV quiz show that got its start in the UK before making its way to American shores.

According to Knight, who co-created the series with fellow producers Mike Whitehill and David Briggs, the earliest pitch for the series was a bit different than what it became. "The original idea was you could win an unlimited amount of money, you could just go on forever, but the questions would become increasingly impossible," he recalled in an interview with GQ. "But no one would insure that just in case, so we had to think of a limit, so we thought, well, a million, why not?" And with that rhetorical question, a pop culture staple was born.

As much of a surprise as it might be to find out that the creator of "Peaky Blinders" is also one of the people behind "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," it's really not all that odd when you look at the context of Knight's earlier career around the time he created it. Believe it or not, Knight wasn't the writer he is today, when he's known for dark dramas and period pieces. In fact, when he first got his start working in television, he had quite a different career and was known more for his comedy and reality shows than somber dramas.

Long before he created shows like the Tom Hardy-led drama "Taboo," even before he wrote the screenplay to the David Cronenberg crime drama "Eastern Promises" (which you probably didn't know was based on a graphic novel), Knight was writing for shows like "Comedy Playhouse" and working on stand-up anthology series like "Canned Carrot." He was a contributing writer to "Auntie's Bloomers," a reality show that featured TV bloopers each week in the days before YouTube and Instagram reels. He also helped craft "Commercial Breakdown," a series that took a satirical look at TV ads, hosted by British comic Jo Brand.

Though he never had any lengthy success in comedy or reality TV, they were the genres where he got his start. It's certainly a far cry from his work on movies like "The Girl in the Spider's Web." And now he's set to write the script for both a "Star Wars" film and the next "James Bond" – quite a change for the man who created the world's greatest quiz show.