Remember when Guy Ritchie made his long-awaited return to the gangster flick with The Gentlemen earlier this year? Yes, that was this year, back in January 2020. And in the decade that passed in the 9 months since The Gentlemen came out, it has earned enough of a following for Miramax TV to commission a TV series adaptation, written and directed by Ritchie himself. It curiously brings the project full circle, as The Gentlemen started off as a TV series pitch before it became a feature.
Deadline reports that Miramax TV is developing a Gentlemen TV series, based on the studio’s action-comedy film written and directed by Ritchie. Ritchie will be at the helm for the TV series, writing and directing the small screen adaptation, as well as executive producing alongside Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies, his fellow producers on the movie.
“Miramax Television is thrilled to break new creative ground in our partnership with Guy Ritchie on The Gentlemen,” said Head of Worldwide Television Marc Helwig. “One of the most distinctive and prolific filmmakers working today and someone whose creativity I have admired for many years, we couldn’t be more excited to bring the cinematic journey of The Gentlemen forth into the realm of global premium television.”
Deadline reports that Helwig has been ramping up efforts to mine Miramax’s extensive film library for properties that could be turned into TV series, and The Gentlemen is ripe for that transformation, due to its origins as a TV series pitch. Other Miramax movies that are getting the small screen treatment include Mimic, which is directed and executive produced by Paul WS Anderson.
That answers the question of why? Why adapt The Gentlemen, a movie that received mixed reviews and left so little of a splash on pop culture that I totally forgot it came out earlier this year? Well, the film actually did pretty well commercially, grossing $115 million worldwide against its $22 million budget, which made it the 9th highest-grossing film of 2020. It should be noted that, with major releases delayed since March due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and theaters shuttered for the majority of the year, the latter statistic met a significantly lower standard than a normal year.
It’s unclear whether The Gentlemen will feature any of the film’s cast or be a sequel or a retelling of the story, which followed American expat Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) who is looking to leave the marijuana empire business, triggering a domino effect of plots, schemes, and murder through the London criminal underworld. The cast was pretty star-studded, featuring the likes of Colin Farrell, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, and Hugh Grant, so it’s unlikely it will be a follow-up series. But with the uncomfortable racial politics of the film and the overall creative laziness of a story that was only really saved by a bonkers Grant performance, it might be best for Ritchie to start the series with a clean slate.
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