‘Young Sherlock’: Why Guy Ritchie’s Prime Video Series Isn’t a Prequel to the Robert Downey Jr. Movies

“Young Sherlock” has arrived, marking a Holmes-coming for Guy Ritchie after he gave fans two beloved Sherlock Holmes movies. But don’t get it twisted, Prime Video’s new series is not a prequel to the films starring Robert Downey Jr. — in fact, Ritchie and his team worked hard to make sure it stood on its own.

Now streaming, the series follows a 19-year-old Sherlock Holmes, played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin. At this point in his life, Holmes isn’t a great detective, he’s just a college-age kid who got too into “Oliver Twist” and wanted to try his hand at pickpocketing. He immediately returned what he stole, but that didn’t matter to his marks, and eventually Sherlock winds up in prison. He’s sprung by his brother Mycroft (Max Irons) and sent to work at Oxford University. It’s there that he encounters his first-ever case.

Sherlock’s presence at Oxford is one of the big changes that “Young Sherlock” makes, considering it’s based on Andrew Lane’s “Young Sherlock Holmes” novels, in which Holmes is 14 years old. But, it’s something that showrunner Matthew Parkhill knew he wanted to do immediately, so he warned Ritchie and the producers that he may not be the choice for them.

“Things I was interested in exploring meant he had to be older,” Parkhill explained to TheWrap. “So I said to the producers, ‘Look, I’m not sure I’m the right guy for this. This is what I would do with it.’ And they were like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of interesting.’ So we had conversations. Then Guy was already involved, so I met with Guy, and what was a 30-minute meeting turned into three hours.”

Agreeing on aging up Sherlock, Parkhill’s conversation with Ritchie also immediately made it “very clear” that, though “Young Sherlock” brings Ritchie back to the character — a third movie is something fans continue to hope for — it is not a prequel to his films.

“The simplest way of putting it is, Hero doesn’t grow up to be Robert Downey, Jr., basically,” Parkhill declared. “So, it was trying to do a Sherlock that exists in its own universe, exists in its own world.”

That said, the episodes definitely bore similarities to Ritchie’s films. He directs the first two episodes, and saw the series through as executive producer, so his style and touch are very much evident.

“Tonally, they’re very close cousins,” Parkhill admitted. “They share a kind of attitude and irreverence, a swagger and energy, you know? And I think we set out to try and make something that those who love those movies — and I loved those movies — would also love this.”

“We wanted to make it a similar sense of adventure, sense of fun, a sense of sort of Saturday night the movies, but as a character, we want to do something that’s very, very different.”

This provided a challenge for Fiennes Tiffin — who worked with Ritchie previously on his 2024 film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” — as the lead, especially as the actor recalled his earliest exposure to the character onscreen would’ve been RDJ. Then there was the portrayal of the detective by another Marvel star, Benedict Cumberbatch, who played him in the BBC’s “Sherlock” series.

“By the time I was offered the role of young Sherlock, and grabbed it with both hands, I actually had to resist the urge to watch any of those portrayals again, because I already felt so influenced,” Fiennes Tiffin told TheWrap. “I was aware of the need to bring some originality to the project. So I was like, ‘OK, cool, I know who this character is. I’ve seen two brilliant but very different portrayals,’ so my prep was kind of solely from the script.”

According to Dónal Finn, who plays Sherlock’s future nemesis James Moriarty — like Ritchie’s first Holmes film, Moriarty is a key piece of the story for “Young Sherlock,” but here, the two have a bromance going — those scripts were plenty to go on. The actor noted they “had a really clear character arc mapped out” for both Sherlock and Moriarty, that allowed for a unique origin story.

“I think what Matthew and Guy have done amazingly is to go, ‘Well, why don’t we just really invest in this friendship?'” Finn told TheWrap. “Because we believe that he’s gonna be a bad guy.”

“But what if we give you all the evidence to say that he was a brilliant friend; that he was supportive to Sherlock in really difficult moments; that he risked his life for him; that he went out of his way to entertain, or to humor and kind of lift him up. And then it deepens any sense of betrayal that could pull them apart as characters, whenever that comes.”

For Parkhill, the friendship and future unraveling of it between Sherlock and Moriarty is the biggest draw of the series. He noted that he sees them as “two sides of the same coin,” and that’s what he and his team want to explore in “Young Sherlock,” should they get to make more episodes.

“I know where it ends, right?” he said. “I think the sweet spot will be four [seasons], maybe. I think there’s a sweet spot in there. Four to five, I think. It used to be, back in the day when you had sort of cable and broadcast, right … the magic number was five seasons.”

“But, you know, it’s a different landscape now,” Parkhill added. “And I think if you get three, you’re doing really well.”

Fiennes Tiffin and Finn have a more longterm plan, though they agree with Parkhill on the number of seasons. Theirs would eventually bridge “Young Sherlock” not with Ritchie’s films, but with Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories.

“We’re going to wrap up this season eventually, I think we’ll do at least four, five, six,” Fiennes Tiffin dreamed. “And then, when we get to the point where we start Conan Doyle’s works, you know, they’ll become enemies, and we’ll meet Watson at Baker Street, and then we’re going to come back and do ‘Old Sherlock.'”

“And we’re going to tell the story of them going back from enemies to friends, and they’re going to be running riot in a retirement home, causing havoc in a retirement home together.”

“Young Sherlock” is now streaming on Prime Video.

The post ‘Young Sherlock’: Why Guy Ritchie’s Prime Video Series Isn’t a Prequel to the Robert Downey Jr. Movies appeared first on TheWrap.