When The Gentlemen reached cinemas in December 2019, we found Guy Ritchie at his most gloriously self-indulgent: gangland geezers shifting gear; dodgy deals and bloody shoot-’em-ups, supercharged by an A-list cast decked out in heritage tailoring and out-there eyewear, all injected with the grizzly wit that the director has become synonymous with.
The film was a hit, taking in $115 million at the box office. Less than a year later, it was announced that Ritchie was developing a spin-off TV series of the same name. Fast forward to March 2024 and that show is about to drop on Netflix.
Featuring an impressive cast, including The White Lotus’s Theo James in the lead role, Joely Richardson, Peter Serafinowicz, Daniel Ings, Giancarlo Esposito, and Skins’ Kaya Scodelario, the series also boasts several familiar faces from Ritchie’s oeuvre, including Vinnie Jones, Max Beesley, and of course, the mighty Ray Winstone. But how does the TV show differ from the original film?
What’s the big idea?
The short answer is that it’s The Gentleman-adjacent. As explained by James in a Netflix interview: “The world of this TV show is inspired by the movie, but the actual narrative is very different.”
In the film, Matthew McConaughey plays Mickey Pearson, who runs a weed empire and is looking to sell off his business, but a variety of other gangster characters wade in to make this deal a little more tricky. There’s blackmail, YouTubers, MMA fighters, oligarchs and a frozen fish factory all making up the rich tapestry of this slightly bonkers comedy-thriller, which also starred Colin Farrell, Hugh Grant, Jeremy Strong, Michelle Dockery and Charlie Hunnam.
The film has links threaded in the series throughout, namely that James’ character, Eddie Horniman – who has inherited a Saltburn-esque pile from his dad – finds out that cannabis is being grown on the estate, which is part of Mickey Pearson’s business, which ultimately traps him in the criminal underworld.
So while there are all-new characters and set up – it’s “a sojourn into the world of aristocrats meeting gangsters”, as one description goes, and looks like it could actually land the kind of biting upper class satire that Emerald Fennell could only dream of – its roots very much sit in its predecessor, and more importantly, within the Guy Ritchie-verse as a whole.
Ritchie explained to Netflix his reasons for giving the concept a second life: “I felt within The Gentlemen I could have at least have continued with another film. I’ve got an inexhaustible creative reservoir of different ideas I’ve come up with in the past… The ability to be able to extend storylines has been tremendously liberating.”
Fans won’t be disappointed, he added, as by now they should be very much attuned to what they’ll be getting. “If you like my sort of worlds,” he said, “then you should like this world.”
The Gentlemen arrives on Netflix from 7 March.
