UK Company Developing Reality Competition Series Inspired by the World of Sherlock Holmes

Remarkable Entertainment struck a deal with the Conan Doyle Estate to develop the unscripted show.

British film director Guy Ritchie (L) gives instructions prior to the shooting of a scene in "Sherlock Holmes 2", on the cathedral square in Strasbourg, France, on Feb. 4, 2011. Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images

Amateur sleuths can put their deductive reasoning skills to the test in a new reality series competition inspired by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary Sherlock Holmes.

Remarkable Entertainment, a subsidiary of Banijay UK Productions, announced on Wednesday that it had struck a deal with the Conan Doyle Estate to develop an unscripted show that draws on the world of his famous fictional detective.

The series, tentatively titled “Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock: The Detective Academy,” will “test players’ powers of deduction and logic as they attempt to solve puzzling crimes,” it said in a statement.

Remarkable Entertainment’s managing directors, Tamara Gilder and Cat Lawson, said in a joint statement that the production company was thrilled to have the approval of the Conan Doyle Estate.

“What an incredible legacy of work—especially the Sherlock Holmes stories. His world offers a truly epic creative backdrop for the next big non-scripted competition,” they said.

“There is simply no greater figure in detective fiction—Sherlock Holmes defined the genre and continues to inspire new generations of armchair detectives around the world.”

In turn, the Conan Doyle Estate’s creative director, Tim Hubbard, praised Remarkable Entertainment’s “brilliant concept and dedication to the thrill of the game.”

“The game’s afoot!” he said. “The Sherlock Holmes stories revolutionized policing and investigation. ... His influence helped shift real-world detective work from intuition and guesswork to logic, observation, and evidence-based techniques. Can the contestants match the great Sherlock?”

Doyle—who died in 1930 at the age of 71—wrote four novels about Holmes and his trusty sidekick Dr. Watson: “A Study in Scarlet” (1887), “The Sign of the Four” (1890), “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (1902), and “The Valley of Fear” (1915).

He also penned 56 short stories about the two crime fighters, the last of which, “The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place,” was published three years before his death.

Doyle’s detective stories have already inspired countless television shows and films, among them “Sherlock Holmes” (1922), “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” (1939), “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” (1970), “Young Sherlock Holmes” (1985), and “Mr. Holmes” (2015).

In 2010, actor Robert Downey Jr. took home a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Doyle’s famed sleuth in the 2009 action thriller “Sherlock Holmes.” A sequel, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” which saw Downey reprise his role opposite Jude Law as Watson, debuted in 2011. Rumors of a third film have been circulating, but a release date has not yet been announced.