WME Signs Guy Ritchie
05.05.2022 - 19:25
/ deadline.com
The Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels filmmaker has inked with WME.
In the wake of making his feature directorial debut in 1998 with that gangster film, Guy Ritchie made a fast name onscreen with his kinetic, whiplash style. While he continued on to make tentpole fare for the Hollywood studios, he’s continued to return to the genre which he’s made his name in.
Recently, Ritchie shot an untitled action-thriller, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, which STX sold to MGM and Amazon. His next theatrical release, STX’s Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre, which he wrote, directed and executive produced, reps another reteam for the filmmaker with Jason Statham. That collaboration began on Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and continued in such crime action pics as Snatch, Revolver and Wrath of Man.
Operation Fortune: Rise de guerre follows Statham as special agent Orson Fortune and his team of operatives as they recruit one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars to help them on an undercover mission after the sale of a deadly new weapons technology threatens to disrupt the world order. Aubrey Plaza and Hugh Grant also star. The pic will hit theaters later this year.
Ritchie noted his highest grossing movie ever at the box office with Disney’s live-action take of Aladdin in 2019 which grossed $1.05 billion; a pic he directed as well as co-wrote. His two Sherlock Holmes movies for Warner Bros, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, together reaped $1.068 billion.
Other Ritchie feature directing credits include The Man From U.N.C.L.E., King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, The Gentlemen and RockNRolla.
On the television side, Netflix is in negotiations to greenlight a series adaptation of Ritchie’s 2020 film The Gentlemen. Ritchie co-wrote the