Guy Ritchie is to helm Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Conduct for Paramount Pictures, with Jerry Bruckheimer set to produce.
Although Guy Ritchie may have reverted to his gangster roots for 2019’s The Gentleman, he’d spent the last few years moving away from the genre that made his name, even if his style and tone continue to be easily recognisable.
Family fare, espionage, mythical fantasy and the literary detective genre have all come under Ritchie’s purview in the last decade, and that diversity of genre looks set to continue with the announcement that the director has signed on to helm Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Conduct for Paramount.
The film will be set during World War II and is described as thus:
This tale takes place in 1939, when the Brits were being pounded by Germany in mainland Europe, and Winston Churchill wanted to hit back hard. His answer: Stop fighting under accepted gentlemanly rules of engagement and create a group of warriors who became the first “deniable” secret operatives to strike behind enemy lines. They were basically Britain’s first black ops unit. Members were recruited, knowing they were likely to be killed. They became a very tight-knit group, and their work spanned WWII. They won important victories against the Nazis, breaking all the accepted rules of warfare in the process and using deception and even the bow and arrow to dispatch the enemy.
With Ritchie directing and Jerry Bruckheimer producing, you can probably already get a clear sense of the kind of big-budget action drama that we’ll be getting.
Ritchie’s Aladdin redo grossed over $1bn for Disney, meaning the disappointing performance of his high-budget 2017 action fantasy King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword has clearly been forgotten. We have to say we’re looking forward to seeing the casting for this one, the story of which is based on the book Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare: How Churchill’s Secret Warriors Set Europe Ablaze And Gave Birth To Modern Black Ops by Damien Lewis.
Ritchie’s films tend to be replete with quirky and memorable characters so a film in the mould of The Dirty Dozen or Inglorious Basterds seems to be a perfect match for the director.
Before starting work on Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Ritchie will complete Five Eyes which stars Jason Statham and Aubrey Plaza, an action espionage adventure. We’ll bring you more news on both projects as we hear it.
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
