{"id":449896,"date":"2026-05-28T19:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T19:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/449896\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T19:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T19:06:11","slug":"new-sherlock-holmes-series-centred-on-most-famous-villain-in-all-of-detective-fiction-in-the-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/449896\/","title":{"rendered":"New Sherlock Holmes series centred on ‘most famous villain in all of detective fiction’ in the works"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sherlock Holmes fans rejoice, as a new, modern-day series focusing on the famed detective’s main antagonist, villain James Moriarty, is in the works. Zeroing in on Sherlock’s arch-nemesis created by author Arthur Conan Doyle, the upcoming series will follow Moriarty as he goes up against a rival criminal while keeping his identity hidden.<\/p>\n

The new series, with the working title of Moriarty, has been described as a “modern reinvention of the crime procedural, based on the most famous villain in all of detective fiction” (via Deadline<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Moving the action from London to the North of England, the procedural follows Moriarty, a Professor of Criminal Psychology at Durham University who leads a secret double life as a criminal mastermind.<\/p>\n

\"andrew<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n

Related: Best streaming services UK 2026 \u2013 including Disney Plus, Netflix, iPlayer and Apple TV<\/a><\/p>\n

When a rival threatens his underground empire, Moriarty joins the police as a consultant, working relentlessly to unmask his competitor while keeping his true identity hidden. Moriarity is paired with Imogen Burrows, a stoic Yorkshire detective, but he soon realises that the real threat isn’t the rival criminal he’s trying to stop.
<\/p>\n

There’s no word yet on who is to play the iconic villain. Moriarty was previously portrayed by Andrew Scott in BBC series Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the eponymous detective role.<\/p>\n

Moriarty has also been played by the likes of Ralph Fiennes, Jared Harris, Dougray Scott, Eric Porter and D\u00f3nal Finn in different projects across the last four decades.<\/p>\n

Produced by Fremantle and Operation Mincemeat and Is This Thing On? producer Archery Pictures, Moriarty is written by Chris Cornwell and Oliver Lansley. The project isn’t attached to a network at the moment.<\/p>\n

\"sherlock,<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n

Archery founder Kris Thykier said: “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.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

Visit our Streaming Guide<\/a> now to see at a glance where you can view ALL your favourite shows and movies.<\/p>\n

The new edition of Living Legends, a collector’s edition exploring the royal family, is here! Buy The Royals in newsagents or online<\/a>.
<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Reporter, Digital Spy<\/p>\n

Stefania is a freelance writer specialising in TV and movies. After graduating from City University, London, she covered LGBTQ+ news and pursued a career in entertainment journalism, with her work appearing in outlets including Little White Lies, The Skinny, Radio Times<\/a> and Digital Spy<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her beats are horror films and period dramas, especially if fronted by queer women. She can argue why Scream is the best slasher in four languages (and a half).\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sherlock Holmes fans rejoice, as a new, modern-day series focusing on the famed detective’s main antagonist, villain James…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[147144,229070,2115,229069,2117,156,207184,2116,111,139,69,229068,437],"class_list":["post-449896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-collection-latest-news","tag-collection-sherlock","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-951e89de-44fb-4fc5-9874-234b8d7928e3","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-shorttitle-new-sherlock-holmes-villain-series-in-the-works","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}