MobLand's cast has somewhere else in mind for a crossover with The Gentlemen
Lara Pulver and Johnny Flynn were put on the spot by Radio Times. Guy Ritchie runs The Gentlemen outright but only executive produces MobLand.
Now, here’s a weirdly specific bit of modern telly conjecture: what if MobLand and The Gentlemen actually crossed over? If you’re not following, both shows are soaked through with Guy Ritchie flavour, and crime drama is baked in at the bottom, so it’s not the daftest rumour anyone’s floated this year. That said, some of the actual cast have now been cornered about how much of a reality this might be—and they’re not exactly lining up to audition for each other’s storylines.
Behind the Scenes: The Ritchie Extended Universe?
Let’s break it down for anyone trying to keep their streaming drama straight. The Gentlemen on Netflix is classic Guy Ritchie: he runs it from top to bottom, creator, director, writer, the whole shebang, and yes, it’s basically dripping in that signature black comedy stuff he loves. Meanwhile, MobLand, currently running its second series on Paramount+, puts Ritchie in the executive producer’s chair and lets Ronan Bennett do the heavy lifting as creator, with Jez Butterworth wrangling the scripts as showrunner. So, not an exact carbon copy, but the family resemblance is there if you squint.
This seemingly obvious overlap has inevitably triggered speculation about whether all this could eventually turn into some sort of splashy crossover event. Because evidently, we’re now living in an age where crossover potential is what strings fans (and journalists, honestly) along between series drops.
The Cast Sound Off
During an interview with Radio Times, Lara Pulver (that’s Bella Harrigan on MobLand) and Johnny Flynn (he’s Frankie Cooper, just joined for season two) were asked about the prospect of a crossover. Pulver was quick to knock the idea on the head, suggesting the two shows are, in her words, “really different worlds.” In fact, Pulver had her own tongue-in-cheek alternative for a crossover:
Pulver told Radio Times she preferred “the idea of the Harrigans doing Bake Off. That makes me laugh more.”
Fair to say, we’re more likely to see a Victoria sponge than a big shootout at this rate. Johnny Flynn, for his part, didn’t sound terribly precious about franchise loyalty either. He admitted he’d only caught “a bit of the first series” of The Gentlemen and actually played up the contrast between the shows. Flynn thinks Ritchie’s strength lies in building each of his criminal worlds as totally separate places. He even got a bit philosophical, referencing Lock, Stock and how none of these shows are chaining themselves to reality.
Flynn explained, “Whether it’s Lock Stock or… and, in a funny way, despite MobLand being quite heightened in a way. It’s like, really? Could that many people have been murdered in a shootout and you wouldn’t hear about it on the news? But The Gentlemen has a sort of conceit, doesn’t it, that it feels even further from reality, in a good way.”
Flynn said a crossover would “be really fun to do”, but insisted the two series “do feel like slightly separate things”. So, after all that, it’s sounding less like a Marvel-esque shared universe and more like two siblings crabby about sharing a bedroom.
Both series have new episodes this year: The Gentlemen streams on Netflix, while MobLand is finishing its second season on Paramount+.