Indian National Award-winning filmmaker Srijit Mukherji is set to direct a new international feature titled Elementary, My Dear Holmes, based on the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the celebrated British author who created Sherlock Holmes.
The film, confirmed in a Variety report on Oct 27, will be an Indo-British co-production backed by the Conan Doyle Estate.
The project brings together Mukherji’s Matchcut Productions and producer Shahnaab Alam, known for acclaimed films such as The Lunchbox, D-Day, and Ugly.
London-based Invisible Thread Media will produce on the UK side. The co-production is being structured under the existing UK-India Co-Production Treaty, administered by the British Film Institute (BFI) and India’s National Film Development Corporation (NFDC).
Set in London in 1906, the film follows Doyle during one of the most turbulent years of his life.
While coping with his wife’s terminal illness – and her wish that he remarry – Doyle becomes entangled in two major cases of wrongful conviction: George Edalji, a man of Indian descent wrongly sentenced for animal mutilation, and Oscar Slater, a Jewish immigrant accused of murder.
In both cases, Doyle applied the same deductive reasoning and moral conviction that defined his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, leading public campaigns to exonerate the men.
His activism played a part in the creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal in England and Wales in 1907 and later in Scotland in 1926.
“I first met Sherlock Holmes as a boy – not in Baker Street, but in the quiet between pages,” Mukherji said. “Elementary, My Dear Holmes imagines Doyle stepping into his own fiction – a man haunted by the clarity he created, forced to apply it to a world far messier than the one on paper.”
Richard Pooley, director of the Conan Doyle Estate, said few today realise how socially active Doyle was throughout his adult life.
“His campaign made people realise that a better mechanism was required for reviewing unsafe verdicts,” he said, calling the film a timely exploration of the writer’s moral courage.
Producer Alam said the collaboration represents “the shared history of cultural and literary legacy between the two nations,” while London councilman Munsur Ali added that the project “isn’t just about more diverse stories, but about international partnerships that change the dynamics of who tells those stories”.
Known for blending history, human drama, and investigative themes, Mukherji brings a fitting sensibility to Doyle’s story. His previous works include Hindi films Begum Jaan, Sherdil: The Pilibhit Saga, and Shabaash Mithu, as well as the Bengali National Award-winning films Chotushkone, Gumnaami, and Ek Je Chhilo Raja.
He also directed popular Feluda crime series Feludar Goyendagiri and Feluda Pherot.
Described as both a period drama and a meditation on creativity, Elementary, My Dear Holmes aims to explore, in Mukherji’s words, “what happens when your invention begins to investigate you”.
Casting details and shooting schedules are expected to be announced soon.
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22 Oct 2025 18:15
