Around a year ago, it was announced that Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown had landed the lead role in a new twist on the Sherlock Holmes stories, titled Enola Holmes, for Legendary Pictures. And now, at long last, it seems the project is finally getting off the ground as a director’s been found.
Variety is telling us that Harry Bradbeer’s signed up to helm the movie. The BAFTA-winning British director is known for his collaborations with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, directing her acclaimed Amazon comedy series Fleabag and BBC America’s smash-hit thriller Killing Eve, also exec produced by Waller-Bridge. Jack Thorne (Wonder), meanwhile, is said to be attached to provide the screenplay.
But who exactly is Enola Holmes? Well, she’s the hitherto unknown younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft and also takes after her brothers by possessing the traditional family trait of amazing deductive reasoning. The character was created by author Nancy Springer and features in six novels, with the first – The Case of the Missing Marquess – published in 2006.
Funnily enough, BBC’s Sherlock also gave the Holmes boys a little sister in its fourth season. Except Eurus Holmes turned out to be a psychopathic mastermind who’d been causing Sherlock grief since he was a kid. Presumably Brown’s heroine will be a little less murder-y than Eurus.
Legendary are clearly keen to keep a hold of the actress though, as the rising star’s also due to appear in May’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters from the same studio. Given that there are a number of Enola Holmes books out there, we’re guessing that Legendary’s hoping for a franchise here.
That’s everything we know about the Sherlock Holmes spinoff for the moment, but perhaps a release date will come our way soon now that a director’s been found. In the meantime, you can catch Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things season 3, hitting Netflix this July.