The film has been a big hit for Netflix
Henry Cavill has spoken on the lawsuit filed by Conan Doyle Estate over his character in the Netflix movie Enola Holmes.
Cavill plays Sherlock Holmes in the film about the famous fictional detective’s younger sister, played Millie Bobby Brown.
Sherlock Holmes first appeared in 1887, and therefore the character is in the public domain – hence why we can various different versions of him on-screen played by the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downey Jr and Will Ferrell, all around the same time.
However, Cavill’s take on the character in Enola Holmes is now subject to a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement and trademark violations from the estate of Sherlock’s creator, Arthur Conan Doyle.
How does that work? The Estate claims that Enola Holmes portrays a “warmer” version of Sherlock, which is only present in the final ten Sherlock Holmes stories – which were written between 1923 and 1927 and are not in the public domain.
It is fair to say that Enola Holmes does offer a different take on the character, with Henry Cavill playing prickly but ultimately loving big brother to Enola, that feels pretty different to the cold, distant Sherlocks of Cumberbatch and Downey Jr.
“I mean, honestly, I don’t have a take on it,” said Cavill when asked about it by GQ. “It’s a character from a page which we worked out from the screenplay. The legal stuff is above my pay grade.”
“He’s going to be the Sherlock we know in the sense that to the rest of the world he can be aloof and cold, but with Enola he had to have an emotional connection,” he continued, explaining his take on the character.
“That was key – and something different than we’ve had in previous Sherlocks.”
Enola Holmes is based on the first book of The Enola Holmes Mysteries, a series of YA novels by Nancy Springer.
