The Sherlock Holmes franchise continues its expansion with a modern reinvention series focusing on his arch nemesis James Moriarty.
Fremantle and Operation Mincemeat producer Archery Pictures are collaborating on Moriarty [working title], which comes from writers Chris Cornwell (A Discovery of Witches) and Oliver Lansley (Where’s Wanda?).
The team said Moriarty will be a “modern reinvention of the crime procedural, based on the most famous villain in all of detective fiction.” Moriarty is a Professor of Criminal Psychology at Durham University but leads a secret double life as the mastermind behind every crime of sophistication in the North of England. When a rival criminal begins an assault on his underground empire, Moriarty will have only one choice: to join the police as a consultant, using the law as a weapon to dismantle his foe while keeping his true identity hidden from the police. Paired with Detective Imogen Burrows, a stoic Yorkshire detective, they’ll form a fearsome team, but Moriarty will soon realize that the real threat isn’t the rival criminal faction he’s dismantling.
Thoughts will naturally turn to who will play the lead, with casting yet to come. Andrew Scott famously played him in Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ hit BBC drama Sherlock and he has also been portrayed by the likes of Ralph Fiennes, Jared Harris, Eric Porter and Dónal Finn down the years. Finn plays him in Prime Video’s Young Sherlock, one of a number of Holmes franchise extensions on TV at present, alongside the likes of CBS spin-off Watson, in which he is played by Randall Park.
Fremantle and Archery, which was founded by Kris Thykier in 2014 and has made the likes of Operation Mincemeat, Netflix’s Fate: The Winx Saga and Bradley Cooper romcom Is This Thing On?, will collaborate on the project, which does not have a network attached as of yet. Fremantle is selling worldwide.
Thykier said: “We are thrilled to be working with Fremantle to bring to life the original and character driven spin off from the Sherlock Holmes universe that Chris Cornwell has created. Moriarty will show audiences what it takes to be a criminal genius, combining genre thrills with a playful, dark, and thrilling dive into the psychology of villainy.”
Rebecca Dundon, SVP Scripted Content at Fremantle, added: “We’ve been looking for a project to work with Archery on for a while and when Kris brought this to us, we instantly saw huge potential for a commercial, returning franchise that brings to life one of the more allusive characters in the Sherlock world.”
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote four novels and 56 short stories aboout the fictional detective well over 100 years ago.