Why Guy Ritchie Is Making The Gentlemen Sequel A TV Series
Guy Ritchie has spent the better part of his decades-long career crafting high-octane, seriocomic tales of wise-cracking, gun-toting criminal sorts doing what those sorts are rife to do. To date, Ritchie has helmed half a dozen or so films about low-level gangsters running amok in the streets of England. And if you've seen them all, you might agree that he pretty much perfected the form with his 2019 offering, "The Gentlemen." It seems that star-studded affair holds a particular spot in Ritchie's heart, as he's set to revisit the world in a spinoff series for Netflix.
Though Ritchie produced a small screen adaptation of his own "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" in 2000, "The Gentlemen" will mark the first time the filmmaker has written and directed a serialized project. And as Ritchie recently told Time, he specifically developed "The Gentleman" as a series so he could revel in building out the film's criminal underworld. "I have to say that is a beguiling departure from just making films," Ritchie said. "When you realize how immersive you can become within certain worlds, TV does become very attractive."
As Ritchie went on to say, he's hoping fans of "The Gentleman" will approach watching the series the same way he watches streaming fare. "Yeah, I'm a binger," he said, before winkingly adding, "So I like to wait until it's all there together. And then I'll rattle through the episodes like bullets in a full magazine. I like to do the whole clip."
Ritchie already has a pitch for another The Gentlemen spin off
According to Deadline, those looking to binge "The Gentlemen" are in for an eight-round affair. As for what "The Gentlemen" will be about, the same Deadline report claims the series will follow Eddie Horniman (Theo James) who, after inheriting his father's vast estate, learns it sits atop the underground marijuana empire run by Mickey Pearson (played by Matthew McConaughey in "The Gentlemen"), placing him at the center of London's criminal underworld.
As far as setups go, that one is particularly clever as it allows Guy Ritchie to build out the world of "The Gentlemen" without relying on the cast of the original film. It seems, however, Ritchie may not be quite done with one of those stars, with the "Snatch" helmer admitting to Time that, if there were one character from "The Gentlemen" he might like to give his very own spinoff film, it's Hugh Grant's sleazy private investigator, Fletcher. "Hugh Grant is rather interesting," Ritchie noted. "He's so watchable. He seems to represent something that very few people represent nowadays. He's incredibly fresh, and he's his own man."
Ritchie would go on to rave over Grant's enduring screen appeal, with the actor now decades into his career. Though Grant and Ritchie re-teamed for the recently released "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre," the helmer is still not entirely optimistic the actor would return for another yummy turn as Fletcher, telling Time, "That might be a hard sell."