Sherlock Gnomes

Gnome Sweet Gnome? The Surprisingly Messy Tea Behind Sherlock Gnomes

When you think Sherlock Gnomes, you probably picture plastic lawn lovers and kids’ matinees, not behind‑the‑scenes heartbreak, scrapped endings, and a studio quietly panicking over a $59 million gamble. Grab your magnifying glass — the garden is messier than it looks.

Casting Shake-Ups & Almost-There Stars

• The Tim Curry heartbreak. Legendary cult icon Tim Curry was originally lined up to voice Dr. Gnome Watson, but had to drop out due to serious health issues after his 2012 stroke. He’d been preparing for new projects when his health declined, and the role ultimately went to Chiwetel Ejiofor . Fans now treat “Tim Curry’s lost Watson” as the great could‑have‑been of gnome cinema.

• The villain who accidentally booked the job. Moriarty’s voice, Jamie Demetriou, started out as a scratch/temporary track. But his take on the unhinged pie mascot was so good, producers ditched their original plan and just kept him — a classic case of “don’t worry, it’s just temp” turning into an actual paycheck ^[1].

• Title star… billed last. In a move that definitely raised a few agent eyebrows, Johnny Depp — the title character — is billed after James McAvoy and Emily Blunt, who are technically the real protagonists. TV Tropes straight‑up tags this as “Billing Displacement,” with Depp’s Sherlock Gnomes pushed to the bottom while Gnomeo and Juliet sit pretty on top ^[1].

Production Drama: Seven-Year Sequel & Studio Musical Chairs

• The seven‑year itch. For a film that was once pitched as basically “immediate sequel,” Sherlock Gnomes arrived seven years after Gnomeo & Juliet. In animation terms, that’s practically a reboot gap and fueled fan chatter that the project languished in development limbo ^[1].

• Studio switch mid‑franchise. The first film was animated by Starz Animation/Arc Productions; the sequel jumps to Mikros Image in Montreal ^[2]. The result? Characters that look just “off” enough for fans to notice and complain about the “new faces” on Reddit and forums. TV Tropes fingers the studio change as the reason for the subtle redesigns ^[2].

• A risky “comeback” for MGM animation. This was MGM’s first mainstream animated feature since 2008’s Igor — and Paramount Animation’s first fully animated film not branded under Nickelodeon ^[2]. Translation: a lot of execs were watching this gnome‑sized experiment very, very closely.

Deleted, Dark & Ditched: The Scenes You Weren’t Meant to See

• The kidnapping sequence that went too hard. A deleted scene, discussed in fan spaces and noted on TV Tropes’ “Nightmare Fuel” page, shows an earlier, much scarier version of how an entire garden of gnomes gets kidnapped — darker and more intense than what kids saw in theaters . Fans called it “terrifying” and “way too much for what this movie is,” which may explain why it quietly vanished.

• The missing mid‑credits humiliation of Moriarty. Writer Andy Riley has said there was supposed to be a mid‑credits gag where Moriarty washes up at a seaside resort and ends up in some humiliating situation at a mini‑golf or arcade. The scene was never finished, leaving only a Word‑of‑God ghost of what might’ve been ^[1].

• Trailer jokes quietly buried. Several bits teased in marketing — including a Sherlock pun and a fart joke involving the speedo‑clad gnome Mankini — were cut by the time the film hit screens ^[1][2]. Parents probably rejoiced; 8‑year‑olds, less so.

Box Office Blues & Fan Backlash

• The “why does this exist?” sequel. Critics were not kind. Animated Antic shredded the film as “boring” and “absolutely pointless,” accusing it of wasting its animation on a predictable, lousy story . Other reviewers called it “unfunny,” “unnecessary,” and “insufferable” for adults .

• A bomb for a studio already struggling. With a reported $59 million budget, Sherlock Gnomes crawled into theaters with a $10.6 million opening weekend and underperformed in the U.S. box office . Coverage framed it as yet another sign of Paramount’s family‑film struggles, with the gnomes dragged into think‑pieces about the studio’s “box office woes” ^[4].

• Rotten Tomatoes drama. The film wasn’t even screened early enough for critics to get a Rotten Tomatoes score up before release; the Tomatometer only popped up on opening day, landing in the “this is fine… actually no it’s not” zone in the 20‑something percent range ^[1].

• Fan conspiracy theories about the trailer. In a Reddit thread tied to I Hate Everything’s “Search for the Worst” episode, movie fans swap rumors that the trailer was deliberately cut to look even worse — an attention‑grabbing “so bad you have to see it” strategy ^[3]. Unconfirmed, but the fact that people think the studio might sabotage its own movie says everything.

Strange Gnome Lore & Wild Little Details

• A meta gnome‑verse that Japan missed. Japan never got Gnomeo & Juliet theatrically, so Sherlock Gnomes went straight to video there, complete with references to a movie Japanese kids had never seen. The dub reportedly kept those callbacks anyway, creating a bizarre “sequel as introduction” situation ^[1].

• The Moriarty we almost got. The villain was originally designed as a mascot for “Little Boy Blue Ice Cream” before being reimagined as a pie mascot; the current design is a compromise after that earlier pitch was rejected ^[1].

• Gender chaos in the gargoyles. Guard gargoyles Reggie and Ronnie started as one silent gargoyle named Grimesby, then became two female speaking gargoyles, and only later morphed into the male duo in the final cut. The novelization still slips and refers to Ronnie as “she” multiple times — fandom treats it as accidental canon for a trans gargoyle ^[1].

• The Sherlock nerd deep cuts. The moving company is called “Sherrinford Movers,” a nod to “Sherrinford,” the name Arthur Conan Doyle first considered for Holmes. Irene’s home is “Doyle’s Doll Museum” ^[2][9]. These references are the kind of hyper‑specific flex only hardcore Sherlockians were ever meant to notice.

• Elton John’s little cameo in gnome‑form. Sir Elton, back as executive producer, gets a tongue‑in‑cheek gnomic version of himself hiding among missing gnomes in some broadcasts — a wink from the man who helped bring this entire plastic Shakespeare‑meets‑Sherlock universe into being ^[2].