2020 was a busy year, so you might already have forgotten that a movie called “Enola Holmes” was released to Netflix in September. Lawyers haven’t, though. The film is based on a series of novels written by Nancy Springer, in which Springer imagines that the great British detective Sherlock Holmes had a younger and equally gifted sister called Enola. You won’t see the name “Enola Holmes” mentioned in any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous books because he didn’t create her. Springer invented Enola and tacked her on to the existing Sherlock Holmes canon, which begs the question of whether she can be considered canon at all.
The estate of Conan Doyle wasn’t necessarily upset by Springer’s decision to give Sherlock a new family member but did object to the fact that the film based on her work decided to portray a new version of Sherlock Holmes on screen and present him as a warm, emotional man. That differs significantly from how Holmes is depicted in the original books and was considered a big enough offence for the estate to hit Netflix with a lawsuit. Both parties backed off and eventually dismissed the lawsuit, but many observers thought that the experience would probably put Netflix off the idea of making another film. They were wrong.
Netflix can be quite bullish when it feels like it and has decided that 2022 will be a good year to bring Enola back to our screens. They might yet also decide to release the film to movie theatres, which wasn’t an option during 2020 at the height of the pandemic. It transpires that Netflix learned no lessons at all from the lawsuit because both Millie Bobbie Brown and Henry Cavill have been confirmed as among the cast. Brown plays Enola, so her return was to be expected, but Cavill – as you’ll already know if you saw the first film – plays Sherlock Holmes. Either the “Enola Holmes” version of Sherlock will have undergone a personality transplant by the next time we see him, or Netflix might be gearing up to do battle with the Conan Doyle estate again. The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court last time. If Netflix is seen to commit the same offence, the estate might not be quite so willing to take the easy route if they object to it.
Very little is known about the new movie as of the time of writing, but Netflix isn’t short of source material. Springer wrote six “Enola Holmes Mysteries” novels between 2007 and 2010. In order, they are “The Case of the Missing Marquess,” “The Case of the Left-Handed Lady,” “The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets,” “The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan,” “The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline,” and “The Case of the Gypsy Goodbye.” The six-book series proves that Nancy Springer has a very rigid structure when it comes to naming her novels and that there’s an enthusiastic audience out there for the stories. The first movie took pieces from all of the books rather than following the plot of any one of them in particular but left plenty of material behind to use in the sequel.
Springer decided to stop writing new “Enola Holmes” books after the sixth instalment because she felt she’d taken the character as far as she could go and dealt with many of the puzzles and problems she’d laid out for her in the first novel. After the first film’s success, though, she conceded that she was considering whether there’d be any mileage in writing new books where Enola partners with Sherlock and helps him solve his cases. She’d probably find an audience for that, but she’d also probably find herself running into trouble with the Conan Doyle estate in the same way Netflix did. While the first few Conan Doyle novels belong to the public domain on account of the amount of time that’s elapsed since they were published, his later works are still covered by copyright. This has proven to be complicated when making films and other products that feature Sherlock Holmes in the past and is likely to continue doing so in the future.
Just because something is complicated, though, doesn’t mean it can’t be done. The BBC series “Sherlock” delighted millions of viewers globally by moving the character into a modern setting without upsetting the estate, and Robert Downey Jr’s all-action “Sherlock Holmes” movies managed to bypass copyright issues, too. There are even Sherlock Holmes games at online slots websites. An online slots game with a title like “Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal In Bohemia” is precisely the sort of thing you’d expect the estate to have an issue with, and yet it remains online and making money at Rose Slots for New Zealand players. “Sherlock’s Casebook,” “Sherlock Mystery,” and “Sherlock of London” round out the Holmes-themed online slots and survive without issue, which makes you wonder why the estate ever decided to selectively pursue the first “Enola Holmes” movie in the first place.
That’s a mystery that none of us will ever get to the bottom of, but hopefully, the sequel to the popular film will present us with one that we’ll enjoy watching get solved. Legendary Films are primarily responsible for the film’s production, with Netflix listed as “working in partnership” with the studio. Whether that means Netflix is doing little other than providing funding or whether they have a more active role remains to be seen. What we do know is that the first film managed to achieve the not-always-easy task of keeping children entertained while appealing to their parents at the same time, resulting in some great family viewing. Millie Bobby Brown is perfectly cast in the title role, and Cavill’s Holmes makes for an excellent foil while giving the actor something to do as he waits to find out whether he’s ever going to play Superman again. Production and filming will continue throughout 2021, so at the moment, we expect to see the finished product on our screens by the end of the first quarter of 2022. Yet again, the game is afoot!
