Guy Ritchie is writing and directing a TV show based on his 2020 movie The Gentlemen. Released early in the year before COVID shut down theaters, Ritchie’s twisty and violent action movie pulled in a respectable $115 million at the box office on a reported budget of $22 million.
Featuring an all-star cast including Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Colin Farrell, Michelle Dockery and a playing-against-type Hugh Grant, the movie saw Ritchie once again delving into the British underworld for a complex tale involving various characters scheming to take control of a marijuana kingpin’s empire. Indeed, the film was widely seen as a return to form for Ritchie, who began his career making gritty crime films featuring multiple shady characters and layered narratives before moving on to bigger-budget fare like Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur and, in the strangest career turn of all, the Disney movie Aladdin. Critics largely approved of Ritchie turning back the clock to once again guide a group of macho men through a twisty series of capers, with The Gentlemen currently holding a 75% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Ritchie himself also clearly enjoyed returning to the world of crime and criminals, as the director is reportedly working on turning The Gentlemen into a series. As reported by Deadline, Miramax TV is developing the show with Ritchie set to write and direct. Indeed, Ritchie first pitched The Gentlemen as a TV show before making it as a feature film, so in a sense he’s now returning to his original idea.
This of course is not the first time one of Ritchie’s movies has been spun into a TV series, as his 2000 film Snatch was also later made into a show starring Rupert Grint. Unlike Snatch, which did not have Ritchie’s direct creative input, The Gentlemen will benefit from the writer-director being hands-on in weaving another narrative out of his ideas. It remains to be seen of course if the TV version of The Gentlemen will benefit from the kind of high-powered cast that helped make the movie a hit with critics and audiences, but it seems unlikely that names like McConaughey, Farrell and Hunnam could be lured to such a project.
As for Ritchie’s specific story plans, it’s possible the show could be a direct sequel to the original film, as the movie does somewhat cheekily tease the possibility of a follow-up (the film ends with the majority of the characters surviving all the scheming and murder, and leaves a lot of doors open for more story). It’s also possible that Ritchie could do an entirely new story set in the same world as the movie and similar in tone, but with new characters (and a much more affordable cast). What’s certain is that Ritchie is very intrigued by the world he set up with The Gentlemen, and is eager to further explore it. By entering the TV arena after a very successful run in films, Ritchie joins an increasingly illustrious list of filmmakers who’ve made the same jump, a development that only helps TV and streaming increase their advantage over theatrical studio filmmaking in the new entertainment landscape.
Source: Deadline