After directing some of the biggest blockbusters of the past few years, including 2019’s Aladdin and two Sherlock Holmes movies, Guy Ritchie will be making one of his rare debuts to the small screen. It looks like the director has given the green light to adapt The Gentlemen into a Netflix series after Lock, Stock… and the recent Snatch series.
The pilot script for the series has already been completed and written by Ritchie himself. The British director also penned the script for the 2019 movie based on a story by himself, Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies. In the original movie, Matthew McConaughey played an American immigrant and criminal who decides to pull money from his job. However, he has been subjected to a series of threats, intrigues, plots, bribery and blackmail as he has managed to build a hugely profitable marijuana empire in London.
If the negotiations for The Gentlemen’s TV series go in a good direction and the signings are signed, Ritchie will serve as executive producer of the project and direct the first two episodes. This will set the tone and pace for the entire season, just in case. Ironically, before the times of the pandemic, The Gentlemen originally came out as a series, but Ritchie turned the story into a movie. Now, if the project continues to work, there will be a broad storyline already prepared for the series and an already established fan base. When the power of Netflix is added to all these, it will turn into a popular series.
The Gentlemen also features a star-studded cast that includes Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Colin Farrell, Henry Golding, Hugh Grant and Eddie Marsan. The action-comedy film was one of the box office surprises of 2019, grossing over $115 million against a modest $22 million budget.
There’s no word yet on whether any of the actors are committed to reprising their roles, but it’s possible that the entire cast will change, given that series based on movies tend to get reboots. On the other hand, The Gentlemen is a relatively new movie and still fresh on everyone’s minds, so a sequel may be inevitable. Netflix and Miramax TV have yet to reveal more details about The Gentlemen series.