“as famous among crooks... as he is unknown to the public” [VALL]
By all estimations, Sherlock Holmes is the most-portrayed literary character ever. Appearing in more than 250 films with his trusted friend and colleague Dr. Watson (who himself has had his own series), we frequently see Holmes face off against his archnemesis, Professor Moriarty.
But until now, the professor has never gotten his own series. As Holmes himself exclaimed in "The Final Problem":
“Aye, there’s the genius and the wonder of the thing!”
That wonder is coming to an end.
Fremantle and Archery Pictures have announced Moriarty (working title), a new original crime drama series built around the man Sherlock Holmes called "the Napoleon of crime" — Professor James Moriarty. The announcement, made on May 28, positions the project as "a modern reinvention of the crime procedural, based on the most famous villain in all of detective fiction."
The series will be written by Chris Cornwell (A Discovery of Witches, Strike Back) and Oliver Lansley (Where's Wanda?, Flack). Archery Pictures and Fremantle will co-produce, with Fremantle handling global sales. No network or streaming platform is attached as of yet.
The Premise
"Sometime when you have a year or two to spare I commend to you the study of Professor Moriarty." [FINA]
The show's concept has a pleasing irony to it. In the canonical stories, Holmes famously deduces Moriarty as the unseen organizing intelligence behind London's criminal world — he tells Watson:
“He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city... He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them.”
This new series updates the double life of professor / master criminal and moves it out of London. The official synopsis reads:
James Moriarty is a Professor of Criminal Psychology at Durham University but leads a secret double life as the mastermind behind every crime of sophistication in the North of England. When a rival criminal begins an assault on his underground empire, Moriarty will have only one choice: to join the police as a consultant, using the law as a weapon to dismantle his foe while keeping his true identity hidden from the police. Paired with Detective Imogen Burrows, a stoic Yorkshire detective, they'll form a fearsome team, but Moriarty will soon realise that the real threat isn't the rival criminal faction he's dismantling, but Imogen's increasingly perceptive suspicions…
The update from mathematics to criminal psychology is a neat one. Doyle's Moriarty holds a mathematical chair at “one of our smaller universities" before dark rumors force his resignation, and his academic cover as a retired army coach gives Holmes the occasion for that famous put-down: “ex-Professor Moriarty...the retiring mathematical coach.”
The new version swaps the subject matter while keeping a similar structure: the professor who should be above suspicion, the criminal genius hidden in plain academic sight.
The procedural concept — because what would a modern Sherlockian series be without being reimagined as a standard police procedural? — is Moriarty embedded in a police consultancy against his will, with a sharp-eyed detective partner threatening to unravel everything. It also echoes the dynamic Holmes himself describes in The Valley of Fear, where he compares Moriarty to Jonathan Wild, the eighteenth-century criminal mastermind who controlled London's underworld while maintaining a veneer of respectability:
“The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all been done before, and will be again.”
The Production Team
Archery Pictures was founded in 2014 by producer Kris Thykier, whose credits include Operation Mincemeat, Netflix's Fate: The Winx Saga, and the Bradley Cooper comedy Is This Thing On? Thykier expressed enthusiasm for the project:
“We are thrilled to be working with Fremantle to bring to life the original and character driven spin off from the Sherlock Holmes universe that Chris Cornwell has created. Moriarty will show audiences what it takes to be a criminal genius, combining genre thrills with a playful, dark, and thrilling dive into the psychology of villainy.”
Rebecca Dundon, SVP Scripted Content at Fremantle, added:
“We've been looking for a project to work with Archery on for a while and when Kris brought this to us, we instantly saw huge potential for a commercial, returning franchise that brings to life one of the more allusive characters in the Sherlock world: Moriarty. It's exciting to collaborate with Kris and the team at Archery to bring a premium, propulsive, contemporary drama to screen that will not only be clever and hooky, but also give us a fresh spin on the procedural crime format with an unconventionally brilliant protagonist at the heart who will constantly surprise and frustrate viewers in a highly entertaining manner!”
Fremantle's interest in a “commercial, returning franchise” signals ambition beyond a limited series. The partnership with Archery is one of several creative collaborations Fremantle has forged, alongside deals with the likes of Kristen Stewart's Nevermind Pictures, Emma Stone and Dave McCary's Fruit Tree, and Rachel Weisz and Polly Stokes' Astral Projection.
Casting and the Shadows of Recent Moriartys
No casting has been announced, but the role has inevitably invited comparisons to previous screen incarnations. Andrew Scott's portrayal in the BBC's Sherlock — manic, mercurial, disturbingly likeable — remains the most culturally vivid recent version. Others to have taken on the role include Ralph Fiennes, Jared Harris, Eric Porter, and, in Prime Video's current Young Sherlock, Dónal Finn.
(See entries from Deadline and AV Club, if you dare.)
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A Crowded Field
The announcement lands in a moment of notable Sherlockian abundance on television. Young Sherlock on Prime Video recently earned a second-season renewal. The CW's Sherlock and Daughter is expected back for a second season. CBS's Watson, which put Morris Chestnut in the doctor's chair after Holmes's death, was cancelled earlier this year. This is, of course, after 154 episodes of Elementary from 2012–2019.
Related:
"A Sherlockian Analyzes Some of the Early Episodes of Elementary"
As AV Club notes, all of those shows had their own Moriartys — but this will be the first time in the modern television era that the Professor himself gets top billing.
The Moriarty of the stories appears surprisingly sparingly in the original 60 stories. His most significant appearances are in "The Final Problem", where Holmes describes him at length to Watson and they face each other at Reichenbach; The Valley of Fear, a prequel in which Holmes explains Moriarty's criminal network to Inspector MacDonald; and the flashbacks in "The Empty House" and two others where he is discussed in retrospect. (Do you know which stories?)
The relative scarcity of canonical Moriarty — compared to his enormous cultural footprint — has always left room for imaginative expansion. A man of good birth and excellent education, compelled by a "criminal strain" in his blood that his extraordinary intelligence only amplifies, who builds the most sophisticated criminal organization in Europe while maintaining an aura of complete respectability: Doyle sketched him in broad, brilliant strokes and left the canvas largely blank.
Someone has finally taken him up on it.
We at IHOSE Media have naturally taken up the topic over the years. Here are some worthy episodes and articles about Professor Moriarty worth exploring
Articles:
- Moriarty, John Gardiner's Last Book, Is Available
- Moriarty: The Devil's Game Is Now Available on Audible
- Horowitz's Moriarty Is an Ingenious Thriller
Episodes:
- Episode 245: Moriarty's Game — an interview with show creator and writer Charles Kindinger
- Episode 265: Ken Ludwig's Moriarty — an interview with the playwright and Ashely Polasek, executive director of the Ken Ludwig Company, on his latest play
- Trifles Episode 160 - Army Coaches
- Trifles Episode 219 - Moriarty's Mathematics
- Trifles Episode 472 - Professor Moriarty
- Trifles Episode 481 - Mr. Moriarty
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