Sequel-baiting endings have long been a scourge of cinema, but at least we know who to blame after Guy Ritchie promised to deliver the follow-up to RocknRolla that has still yet to materialize a decade and a half after the convoluted crime caper’s release.
The culprit was none other than the bright lights of Hollywood, with Ritchie swayed by the prospects of much bigger budgets and the chance to play in a significantly larger sandbox. To put things into perspective, RocknRolla was the filmmaker’s most expensive movie ever at the time, and it only cost $18 million to produce.
After that came the $90 million Sherlock Holmes and its $125 million sequel, $84 million flop The Man from U.N.C.L.E., infamous $175 million disaster King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and Disney’s $183 million Aladdin remake, before he returned to his roots with the $22 million crime caper The Gentlemen, which ironically got him sued on account of RocknRolla.
Writer Mickey De Hara filed a breach of contract claim against the director claiming that he’d been tasked to pen the promised The Real RocknRolla, only for Ritchie to say he wasn’t interested in another gangster flick, before the scribe claims many of his plotlines and story beats ended up appearing in The Gentlemen anyway.
It’s shame to know that the second chapter won’t be happening, because the star-studded romp through the underworld with Gerard Butler, Tom Hardy, Idris Elba, Toby Kebbell, Ludacris, Gemma Arterton, Mark Strong and more remains plenty of fun, one that’s even doing a renewed turn on streaming after FlixPatrol named it one of the most-watched titles on Google Play Movies.