As the single most frequently adapted fictional character in history, it feels as though we get a new spin on Sherlock Holmes every other year, but Netflix have looked beyond the iconic detective as they develop an expanding roster of exclusive in-house content where the legendary sleuth exists only on the peripherals of the story, as opposed to being the main character.
The approach certainly worked with Enola Holmes, which became one of the platform’s most-watched original movies ever after dominating the Top 10 list for weeks, with producer and star Millie Bobby Brown set to return for as many as five sequels, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The Irregulars is coming later this year, which focuses on the titular gang of intelligence-gathering street urchins and spins the standard mythology in an altogether more supernatural and horrific direction. Then there’s Sherlock Junior, a modern day story that teams teenage American John Watson up with British expat Sherlock Holmes as they seek to recover buried treasure and solve a disappearance.
If that still wasn’t enough, we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones who told us Sherlock Junior was coming to Netflix eight months before it was confirmed, and that a Witcher prequel series was in the works – that the company are also hoping to acquire the distribution rights to Starling Television’s Sherlock’s Daughter, which was only given the green light to try and find a home earlier this week.
The murder mystery thriller follows a young American woman who discovers that her biological father is Sherlock Holmes, and she travels to London to try and track him down in order to reconnect and build a relationship, only to discover that he’s not all he’s cracked up to be. Sherlock’s Daughter was actually in development before Enola Holmes, but it looks as though Netflix are more than happy to add it to their arsenal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle adaptations.
