
Prime Video announced Wednesday that it has ordered Young Sherlock, an eight-episode streaming series adapted from Andrew Lane’s YA novels about Sherlock Holmes as a teenager. Guy Ritchie, who directed the Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr. as the Great Detective, will be a director and executive producer. English actor Hero Fiennes Tiffin will star in the title role.
“In Young Sherlock we’re going to see an exhilarating new version of the detective everyone thinks they know in a way they’ve never imagined before,” Ritchie said in a Prime Video press release. “We’re going to crack open this enigmatic character, find out what makes him tick, and learn how he becomes the genius we all love.”
Prime Video described the series as “an irreverent, action-packed origin story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved detective in an explosive re-imagining of this iconic character. At age 19, Sherlock Holmes is disgraced, raw, unfiltered, and unformed, when he finds himself caught up in a murder mystery at Oxford University which threatens his freedom. Diving into his first-ever case with a wild lack of discipline, Sherlock manages to unravel a globe-trotting conspiracy that will change his life forever.”
Matthew Parkhill, a writer for the series Rogue and Deep State, will be the writer and showrunner in addition to executive producer. Lane will also serve as an executive producer.
Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films, especially Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, were notable for their inclusion of steampunk elements. However, it’s not clear if that will carry over to the series. Lane’s novels were set in the 1860s and 1870s.
Tiffin previously starred in Ritchie’s feature film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. As a child actor, he portrayed young Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He is a nephew of actor Ralph Fiennes.
The series apparently has no relation to the 1985 movie Young Sherlock Holmes, which was based on an original story by Chris Columbus.