Charlie Hunnam Addresses The Gentlemen Return & Reveals Original Plan For Guy Ritchie's Netflix Spinoff

Published Sep 10, 2026, 4:46 PM EDT

Grant Hermanns is a TV News Editor, Interview Host and Reviewer for ScreenRant, having joined the team in early 2021. He got his start in the industry with Moviepilot, followed by working at ComingSoon.net. When not indulging in his love of film/TV, Grant is making his way through his gaming backlog and exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends.

EXCLUSIVE: Charlie Hunnam hasn't closed the door on The Gentlemen.

The Golden Globe and Emmy nominee led the cast of Guy Ritchie's 2020 crime thriller as Raymond Smith, right-hand man and fixer to Matthew McConaughey's drug kingpin Mickey Pearson, whose critical and commercial success quickly paved the way for a spinoff that would eventually be acquired by Netflix. The Gentlemen series shifts the focus to the Horniman family after the death of their patriarch reveals their estate being used for marijuana growth, and they struggle to find their way through the dangerous criminal underworld.

Led by Theo James and Kaya Scodelario, The Gentlemen has proven to be a strong series for Netflix, garnering largely positive reviews from critics in season 1 before setting a new franchise-high with the recently released second season. Even prior to the latter's premiere, the streamer greenlit a third season for the spinoff series, with filming set to begin this month.

Now, in an interview with ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns for fellow Netflix title Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, Hunnam was asked about his potential reunion with Guy Ritchie on The Gentlemen or another project. The star revealed that Ritchie had actually "come to me three times" in the years since the film, praising him as "one of my favorite directors to work with," only for Hunnam to be "already committed to other jobs every time."

One such collaboration they were in talks for was that of Netflix's The Gentlemen, revealing that the original plan for the spinoff series was to "follow that character that I played, Raymondo, as he rose up and took over the empire" from McConaughey's character. Hunnam described it as being "a really bitter call" to have to turn down RItchie's pitch for the series, as he was "involved in a project that was going to take about a year to complete," and the filmmaker "wasn't able to wait." Even still, the Emmy nominee is "really hopeful" that he and Ritchie will team up again.

Hunnam's reveal that the original plan for Netflix's The Gentlemen was to put him back in the lead comes as something of a surprise, given plot details for the series prior to its debut generally indicated there would be an entirely new roster of characters to focus on. Considering the star-studded roster of the film alongside Hunnam and McConaughey, with everyone from Henry Golding to Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant also being key players in the movie, and many made it out alive by the end.

To Hunnam's point, his schedule immediately became packed in the wake of The Gentlemen's release. This included starring in Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire as the Han Solo-like mercenary Kai, the well-received mystery novel adaptation Last Looks, Apple TV's short-lived true-story-inspired thriller Shantaram and the third season of Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy's Monster, leading the charge as infamous serial killer Ed Gein.

Even while most of his projects have wrapped, Hunnam is still quite busy. Production began on MGM+'s John le Carré adaptation, Legacy of Spies, back in April, with no filming wrap announced as of yet, while also still waiting on a release for his Prime Video adaptation of Ed Brubaker's Criminal. He also just recently launched development on a new Sons of Anarchy spinoff entitled Legends, which will be a meta take mixing both the real-world cast playing fictionalized versions of themselves and interacting with the show brought to life in the real world.

However, in spite of Hunnam's schedule, there is still very much a chance he could appear in The Gentlemen show at some point. The Netflix spinoff is still set in the world of the film, and while no major crossovers have happened thus far, the growing scale of the Hornigan family's operations after season 2 could give a clearer pathway for Raymond to return and be in power, as was the original plan. It would also make it easier to fit into Hunnam's schedule by having him appear in a smaller or supporting capacity.

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  Release Date

  January 1, 2020

  Runtime

  113 minutes

  Director

  Guy Ritchie

  Writers

  Lauren Bond, Guy Ritchie

  Producers

  Bill Block, Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson, Matthew McConaughey

  • 

    Charlie Hunnam

    Ray

  • 

    Michael Pearson

  From writer/director Guy Ritchie comes The Gentleman, an action/crime comedy that follows a prominent American cannabis dealer in London as he attempts to leave the industry for good. When word gets out that the dealer is looking to sell off his business, several opportunists emerge from the woodwork, employing every manner of schemes and ploys they can to undercut him and claim the market for themselves.

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  Release Date

  2024 - 2026-00-00

  Network

  Netflix

  Directors

  David Caffrey, Guy Ritchie, Eran Creevy, Nima Nourizadeh

  Writers

  Stuart Carolan, Guy Ritchie, Matthew Read, Billy Mason Wood, Haleema Mirza

  • 

    Kaya Scodelario

    Susie Glass

  • 

    Theo James

    Eddie Horniman

  Based on the film of the same name, the Gentlemen is a crime drama series created for Netflix by Guy Ritchie. The series follows Eddie Horniman, who inherits his father's estate, only to discover he has inherited a vast cannabis empire - and all of the rivals that come with it.