Lupin trailer offers a fresh retelling of classic French gentleman thief

Omar Sy stars as Assane Diop in the new Netflix series Lupin, a contemporary retelling of the classic French story about a gentleman thief and master of disguise.

A man seeking revenge for the death of his father attempts a risky museum heist in Lupin, a new series premiering on Netflix in January starring French actor and comedian Omar Sy. The series is a contemporary reimagining of a classic character in French detective fiction, Arsene Lupin, a gentleman thief and master of disguise who was essentially the French equivalent of Sherlock Holmes.

Suave, stylish, and sophisticated, Lupin is the creation of Maurice Leblanc, who based the character partly on a French burglar/anarchist. Leblanc was also familiar with the gentleman thief featured in the work of Octave Mirbeau as well as E.W. Hornung's famed gentleman thief, A.J. Raffles, and he also knew about Rocambole, a character whose adventures were recounted in a series of stories published between 1857 and 1870 by Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail.

Relentlessly pursued by a detective named Ganimard, Lupin is captured stealing a woman's jewels on board a ship. Although he is imprisoned, he ultimately escapes before standing trial and goes on to pull off many other colorful heists. In a June 1906 story, "Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late," Lupin meets the aging detective, although for legal reasons-Arthur Conan Doyle objected-the name was changed to "Herlock Sholmes" when the story was included in the first book of collected stories. The Sholmes character appeared in a few more stories later on. All told, Leblanc wrote 17 novels and 39 novellas featuring Lupin.

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