Theo James Leading Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Gentlemen’ TV Spin-Off
The Netflix series will build off of Ritchie’s 2020 crime caper, which starred Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Grant and more.
Theo James in HBO Max's 'The Time Traveler's Wife.'
Guy Ritchie launched his directing career with the likes of ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells’ and ‘Snatch’, but in more recent years, he moved on to movies such as ‘Aladdin’ and ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’
Still, in 2020, he released what many people saw as a return to his roots, ‘The Gentlemen’, a crime caper set in London stocked with colorful characters. And since March of this year, Netflix has been looking to lock down a TV version with Ritchie involved.
Fast-forward a few months and it’s a reality, the streaming service handing out a straight-to-series order and Ritchie casting Theo James in the lead role.
‘The Gentlemen’, in case you didn’t catch it, follows American expat Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), who built a highly profitable marijuana empire in London. When word gets out that he’s looking to cash out of the business forever, it triggers plots, schemes, bribery and blackmail in an attempt to steal his domain out from under him.
Among the rest of the cast, the standouts were Colin Farrell, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Jeremy Strong and Hugh Grant, who brought to life an assembly of oddball gangsters, sleazy journalists and assorted thugs.
(L to R) Hugh Grant, Jeremy Strong, Henry Golding, Colin Farrell, Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, and Michelle Dockery in Guy Ritchie's 'The Gentlemen.' Photo courtesy of STX Films.
All we know of the show’s cast so far is James, playing Eddie Halstead, who has inherited his father’s sizeable estate only to discover that it’s sitting on top of a weed empire owned by the legendary Mickey Pearson. Has this straight-up soldier got what it takes to master the dark arts of the British criminal underworld and take control of the entire operation?
No word on whether McConaughey or any of the others could pop up in the series, but we’ll find out soon enough. Ritchie wrote a pilot script with ‘Peaky Blinders’ veteran Matthew Read and is about to start shooting. He’ll direct the first two episodes (setting up the show’s feel) and is an executive producer overseeing the rest.
Ritchie’s TV work is rare, but not unheard of, as he’s adapted his films before – he created and co-wrote ‘Lock, Stock….’, which turned his debut into a show for UK broadcaster Channel 4.
And the director is busy on the big-screen front, too. He has action comedy ‘Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre’ complete and headed to screens next year, and is attached to develop and direct a new, live action/CG 'Hercules' movie for Disney with Joe and Anthony Russo producing.
But before that one can even think about moving forward, there is Ritchie’s next actual gig, ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’, which has Henry Cavill aboard as its lead.
Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and co-starring Eiza González, the based-on-truth World War II spy thriller will focus on Winston Churchill’s and Bond writer Ian Fleming’s secret combat organization. The clandestine squad’s unconventional and entirely ‘ungentlemanly’ fighting techniques against the Nazis helped change the course of the war and in part gave birth to the modern Black Ops unit.
