Before Guy Ritchie took to directing movies like SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD, and the upcoming ALADDIN, he lived in a stylized world of British crime dramas such as LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS and SNATCH. According to Deadline, Ritchie will be returning to that wheelhouse with the upcoming TOFF GUYS.
Guy Ritchie will unveil the project at Cannes, which he will direct, produce, and co-write (with Marn Davies and Ivan Atkinson), and TOFF GUYS is described as a mash-up between SEXY BEAST and Downton Abbey as it follows 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 project will also return to Ritchie's "signature hyper-real and high-energy shooting, with inherently English dialogue that is hard for some of us to understand as it’s delivered rapid-fire by fast-talking, quirky characters," but slam it up against the American "Okies," who will be bringing a "lyrical banter all their own as urban and rural lifestyles collide" in a story about "old money, new money, and show me the money." I haven't watched much of Guy Ritchie's early work for some time, but after an extended stay in the world of blockbusters, it will nice to see what he can do in a smaller world. Perhaps he'll even be bringing Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones along for the ride.
Before TOFF GUYS, Guy Ritchie has one more blockbuster up his sleeve in the live-action adaptation of ALADDIN, and our own Editor-in-Chief Paul Shirey caught a look at the film at CinemaCon, saying that he was surprised at how closely the costumes and look were to the animated version, but added that the whole thing was done in the "street-level" Guy Ritchie style. ALADDIN is set to hit theaters on May 24, 2019.