Some movies end with a sequel tease that feels like a promise. Others end with a sequel tease that spends the next two decades staring at fans from a distance and refusing to explain itself. This one very much belongs in the second category. Guy Ritchie’s crime caper arrived with an incredibly good cast, gangsters, stolen paintings, double-crosses, rock stars, Russian billionaires, and enough swagger to power a small London borough. It also closed by telling audiences that the story wasn’t over, and naturally, everyone is still waiting for that sequel, nearly two decades later.
Speaking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub for his new film, In The Grey, Ritchie opened up about the long-discussed possibility of returning to RocknRolla. The 2008 crime thriller has become one of Ritchie’s more beloved cult favorites, even though its promised follow-up, The Real RocknRolla, never actually materialized. In 2011, while promoting Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, he said he’d spent a lot of time thinking about it, had written what he considered a great script and had financing in place, but then life happened and everyone seemed to move on.
The original film starred Gerard Butler (300, Olympus Has Fallen) as One Two, Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton, The Full Monty) as Lenny Cole, Thandiwe Newton (Westworld, Crash) as Stella, Mark Strong (Kingsman: The Secret Service, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) as Archy, Idris Elba (Luther, The Suicide Squad) as Mumbles, Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road, Venom) as Handsome Bob, Toby Kebbell (Dead Man’s Shoes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) as Johnny Quid, Karel Roden (Hellboy, The Bourne Supremacy) as Uri Omovich, Ludacris (Fast Five, Crash) as Mickey, and Jeremy Piven (Entourage, Serendipity) as Roman.
As with the best Ritchie movies, RocknRolla follows a crooked deal — this one involving London property — that spirals into chaos when gangsters, small-time crooks, a Russian billionaire, a corrupt accountant, and a supposedly dead rock star collide over stolen money and a missing lucky painting. Naturally, everyone betrays everyone, because it’s Guy Ritchie. RocknRolla closes with a title card promising that “Johnny, Archy and the Wild Bunch will be back in The Real RocknRolla,” which is a very bold thing to say if you then proceed to not make the movie for nearly 20 years, but we salute the sheer brass neck of it.
When asked about whether that sequel could still happen, Ritchie said, "That’s quite funny. I’ve been asked that a bit lately. I'd love to. That's just caught up in a world of administrative, boring quagmire of nonsense. But who knows? We're all going to be older and grayer if that ever comes to fruition."
That will be welcome news for fans who have spent years wondering whether Ritchie would ever make good on the tease at the end of the original film. However, we may already have seen some of what The Real RocknRolla had to offer, because when Weintraub questioned him on some of those sequel plans migrating into other projects, Ritchie confirmed that some of it had made it into The Gentlemen, his hit film that turned into a Netflix sensation.
"Quite a lot of those ideas drifted into The Gentlemen, which seem quite obvious, even by me mentioning it, actually."
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What's Next for Guy Ritchie?
Ritchie's latest movie is out this week. In the Grey stars Henry Cavill, Jake Gyllenhaal, Eiza Gonzalez and Rosamund Pike, and opens on Friday, May 15. The movie follows three elite operatives who are sent off on a mission to retrieve a rather large sum. The movie was initially meant to be released in the US by Lionsgate, and was scheduled for January 2025, but it's finally going to hit theatres, and we can't wait. The movie also features Carlos Bardem, Kristofer Hivju, Fisher Stevens. Ritchie also has Wife and Dog, which is expected later in 2026, starring Pike, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Anthony Hopkins, and he's currently working on Viva La Madness, which stars Jason Statham and Jason Isaacs.
Stay tuned to Collider for all the latest Guy Ritchie updates.
