Director Guy Ritchie has gathered together an all-star trio for his upcoming gangster series The Associate, with the likes of Academy Award nominee Tom Hardy, Academy Award winner Helen Mirren, and former 007 Pierce Brosnan now in final negotiations to star. According to Deadline, The Associate is currently the working title, with the series all set to debut on Paramount+ and follow a fixer, played by Hardy, and a crime family’s matriarch and patriarch, played by Mirren and Brosnan respectively.
The report reveals that The Associate will tell an all-new gangster saga and“see family fortunes and reputations at risk, odd alliances unfold, and betrayal around every corner; and while the family might be London’s most elite fixers today, the nature of their business means there is no guarantee what’s in store tomorrow.” The series is a one-hour drama which comes courtesy of Showtime, MTV Studios, and 101 Studios and “follows two generations of gangsters, the businesses they run, the complex relationships they weave, and the man they call upon to fix their problems.”
Hardy, who will reunite on the series with filmmaker Guy Ritchie after working together back in 2008’s RocknRolla, is reportedly up for the role of Harry, the main fixer, “a man who is as dangerous as he is handsome.”
The Associate Was Initially Planned as a Ray Donovan Spin-off
Guy Ritchie’s The Associate was once envisioned as a spin-off of the hit Showtime series Ray Donovan, which ran for seven seasons and starred Liev Schreiber as a professional “fixer” who mediates between celebrities and wealthy clients, arranging all manner of bribes, payoffs, threats, clean-ups, and various other illegal activities. According to Variety, things have now changed, and The Associate has instead “been reworked into a standalone series with no connections to that franchise.”
Alongside Hardy, Mirren, Brosnan, and Ritchie, the series has been written by Ronan Bennett, who is best known for creating the award-winning British crime thriller series Top Boy, as well as penning the likes of Public Enemies, Gunpowder, and the upcoming The Day of the Jackal starring Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch. The Associate will be executive produced by Ritchie, Bennett, David C. Glasser, Ron Burkle, Bob Yari, David Hutkin, and Ivan Atkinson.
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Guy Ritchie is, of course, well renowned for his work in the gangster genre, beginning with his first two critically acclaimed movies Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. He has returned to the criminal underworld several times over the years, with his equally acclaimed 2019 movie The Gentlemen having now been spun off into a TV series on Netflix starring Theo James and Kaya Scodelario. Following an aristocrat who inherits the family estate and discovers that it’s home to an enormous weed empire, The Gentlemen has now been renewed for a second season.
Tom Hardy, meanwhile, is all set to return to the world of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (and for the final time) in Venom: The Last Dance, while Helen Mirren can next be seen in the Netflix murder mystery The Thursday Murder Club, in which she’ll be joined by Pierce Brosnan, and the Yellowstone prequel 1923.
- Release Date
- March 7, 2024
- Seasons
- 1
- Studio
- Miramax Television, Moonage Pictures, Toff Guy Films
- Creator
- Guy Ritchie