Picture Credits: Netflix
Filming has officially wrapped on The Woods, Netflix’s British adaptation of Harlan Coben’s 2007 novel, with Michelle Keegan confirming her final day on set over the weekend. However, for the first time in three years, New Year’s Day won’t belong to a new UK Coben thriller. That spot has gone to Jamie Dornan’s The Twin.
Netflix first unveiled the cast for The Woods back in April, with cameras rolling on April 28th in Bolton. The production then spent the spring and summer moving around Greater Manchester and the North West. We’ve brought you behind-the-scenes looks along the way, including Mount Street in Manchester being dressed up as a university.
Six months after it started, the shoot has ended where it began.
Michelle Keegan confirms “Last day on The Woods”
Keegan gave us the first hint of a wrap date in September. On BBC’s The One Show, she said, “Well, we’re still filming. We wrap mid-October, so next month.”
She kept her word. On Saturday, October 10th, Keegan posted an Instagram Story of herself on a coffee break among the trees, captioned “Last day on The Woods 🎬.” Earlier that week she had also shared a photo of her trailer door, which named her character, Lucy Silverfield, and production company Quay Street Productions. Bolton News snapped the actress on her last day of shooting.
Bolton locals saw plenty of the final days. Crews were filming at Walker Fold Car Park and along Belmont Road, next to the Woodland Trust’s Smithills Estate in the shadow of Winter Hill. The Coffee Van, a vintage horsebox café that has traded from the car park for around a decade, ended up serving the cast and crew.
Picture Credit: MCPix
Actor Harry Goodson-Bevan also confirmed the wrap last week on Instagram.
As a reminder, the eight-part series stars Tom Bateman as barrister Paul ‘Cope’ Copeland. Twenty years ago, Cope’s sister Camille vanished from a summer camp in the woods. When the body of a man supposedly killed alongside her turns up, Cope begins to suspect Camille made it out alive. He reunites with his first love, Lucy (Keegan), to dig into two decades of lies.
Mandeep Dhillon, Pearce Quigley, James Buckley, Rade Sherbedgia, Tom Allen, Shannon Watson, Pamela Nomvete, and Kerry Howard round out the cast. Tracy-Ann Oberman reprises her Run Away role as Jessica Kinberg. Danny Brocklehurst is lead writer, as on Fool Me Once, Stay Close, and Run Away. Coben has described the series as “a haunting and very personal story.”
This is the second time Netflix has adapted The Woods. The 2020 Polish version kicked off the streamer’s non-English Coben slate.
Why The Woods won’t be on Netflix on New Year’s Day
Since Fool Me Once launched on January 1st, 2024, a new British Coben thriller has become as much a part of New Year’s Day as hangovers and leftover Quality Street. Missing You followed on New Year’s Day 2025, and Run Away did the same in 2026. Even before that, Stay Close landed on New Year’s Eve 2021.
That run is ending. Earlier this week, Netflix confirmed that The Twin will premiere on January 1st, 2027. The Twin is the six-part crime noir formerly known as The Undertow. Jamie Dornan plays estranged identical twins Adam and Lee opposite Mackenzie Davis. The series was filmed in the Scottish Highlands back in 2024 and had been slated for 2026, so Netflix has been sitting on it for a while.
The timing makes sense. With The Woods only wrapping on October 10th, Netflix would have had under 12 weeks to edit, score, grade, and market an eight-episode series. Even in our original cast announcement article, a January slot looked optimistic once the shoot stretched into autumn. A fully finished Dornan thriller (that’s been in the can for over two years at this point) is the obvious stand-in.
Netflix UK did not respond to a request for comment.
So when will The Woods release on Netflix?
Netflix hasn’t given a date, so this is our best guess. A wrap in mid-October points to a release sometime in 2027, most likely in the first half of the year.
The Woods also won’t be the only Coben show arriving next year. Myron Bolitar, starring Colin Woodell, KJ Apa, and Diane Guerrero, is filming in New York and New Jersey into November. It follows June’s US-set I Will Find You, which has been one of Netflix’s biggest releases of 2026. With two big Coben series in the pipeline, Netflix may want space between them, and The Woods has a head start.
It’s also worth remembering how big Keegan’s last Coben outing was. Fool Me Once reached 32 million views in its first week and sits among Netflix’s most-watched English-language series of all time. Whenever The Woods arrives, Netflix will want it to have the spotlight to itself.
In the meantime, you can catch up with every Harlan Coben series on Netflix ranked.
Are you disappointed there’s no Coben on New Year’s Day this year, or is Jamie Dornan a worthy replacement? Let us know in the comments below.
