It’s probably fair to say that Guy Ritchie has gone off-piste as of late
The 50-year-old director made his name with pulpy guns & geezers classics like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Then things took a turn for the worse with bizarre and universally panned outings like Revolver and Swept Away.
He got back on the horse with blockbuster Sherlock Holmes and made a decent fist of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., despite it bombing at the box office. Next up is a live-action remake of Aladdin. If there’s one thing you can’t accuse Guy Ritchie of, it’s being predictable.
Aladdin is due for release next year, which will certainly be a spectacle of some description, but news has emerged that Ritchie is returning to his gangster roots with a project entitled Toff Guys.
Movie studio Miramax have reportedly signed a deal to finance the movie, so it would appear that Toff Guys – that title, really? – will be cracking on. As if a new Guy Ritchie gangster movie wasn’t enough, some casting news will surely have you clamouring to see it.
Recently it emerged that both Matthew McConaughey and Kate Beckinsale will be heading up the cast, in yet to be confirmed roles. Having an Oscar-winner on board is always a good thing to have, but here’s a little bonus for you: Hugh Grant is also joining the film.
Grant will play Fletcher, “a British gossip journalist with a reputation of going into people’s lives, and undoing them.” Sounds very apt, given Hugh’s relationship with the press.
Toff Guys has been described as a a cross between Sexy Beast and Downton Abbey, and is about “a very English drug lord attempting to cash out on his highly profitable empire by selling it off to a dynasty of Oklahoma billionaires”.
The movie is due to go into production soon, so expect to see more updates on this soon. Hopefully one of them being that Toff Guys is now called something else.
