LONDON:
British filmmaker Guy Ritchie takes viewers back into the dark world of organised crime in MobLand, his latest television series that features a stellar ensemble cast including Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren.
The 10-episode show follows two feuding London crime families, the Harrigans and the Stevensons. Hardy plays the Harrigans’ well-connected fixer Harry Da Souza.
“I was interested in the traditional genre, so to speak, that it’s gangsters in one family. I haven’t done that before,” director and executive producer Ritchie said at the show’s global premiere in London on Thursday.
MobLand comes hot on the heels of Ritchie’s hit 2024 Netflix series The Gentlemen. Ritchie, who made his feature film debut with the 1998 crime comedy Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and went on to direct movies including Snatch, Sherlock Holmes and Aladdin, said he was enjoying the smaller screen work.
“I quite like that it goes on for a long time, to be fair. I quite like TV, so it’s fun to oscillate between TV and film. I just think one informs the other,” the 56-year-old said.
MobLand stars Brosnan as the Harrigan family head, crime boss Conrad, with Mirren playing his influence-wielding wife, Maeve. Brosnan received the script from Ritchie last summer while he was working with Mirren on their upcoming movie The Thursday Murder Club and the two agreed to embark on the project.
The experience marked a first for the 71-year-old, who said shooting on the series had only wrapped the day before the premiere.
“This is bonkers. I’ve never had something like this happen in life where you work for five months, finish and then the next night you’re on the red carpet. But that’s the way the world is going – fast,” he said.
MobLand, which is written by Ronan Bennett and Jez Butterworth, premieres on Paramount+ on March 30. Reuters
