Millie Bobby Brown‘s upcoming Netflix series, Enola Holmes, could be in a bit of trouble.
THR is reporting that the movie, which focuses on Sherlock’s younger sister, has been sued by author Arthur Conan Doyle‘s estate.
In 2014, the Conan Doyle Estate lost most of its hold on the infamous Sherlock Holmes character after it was ruled that all of the stories authored about the detective before 1923 were in the public domain.
The complaint namechecks the book author, Nancy Springer, Netflix, Legendary Pictures, and publishing house Penguin Random House, and says that “after the stories that are now in the public domain, and before the Copyrighted Stories, the Great War happened.”
It goes on, “In World War I, Conan Doyle lost his eldest son, Arthur Alleyne Kingsley. Four months later he lost his brother, Brigadier-general Innes Doyle. When Conan Doyle came back to Holmes in the Copyrighted Stories between 1923 and 1927, it was no longer enough that the Holmes character was the most brilliant rational and analytical mind. Holmes needed to be human. The character needed to develop human connection and empathy.”
The complaint questions if the development of feelings is something that can be protected by copyright and whether the alleged depiction of Sherlock in “Enola Holmes” is somehow derivative.
Enola Holmes is set to premiere in September on Netflix.