Lupin’s First Trailer Introduces Omar Sy as the Legendary Gentleman Thief

Lupin’s First Trailer Introduces Omar Sy as the Legendary Gentleman Thief

The gentleman thief of Maurice Leblanc’s novels casts a long shadow that’s spread over a number of different adaptations over the years, like Lupin the Third and Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger vs Keisatsu Sentai Patranger. Where those series played up the more outlandish and fantastical elements of the ideas that define the character, Netflix’s upcoming live-action series about a modern-day thief looks to be much more grounded.

Aside from establishing that it’s set in the present day, Lupin’s first trailer also hints at a bit of meta-ness and the possibility that the series might end up exploring some of the thief’s more supernatural threads in order to weave it into the larger canon. George Kay and François Uzan created the new live-action series, and the first three episodes were directed by The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance’s Louis Leterrier. Take a look.

In the world Assane Diop (Omar Sy) lives in, books about the original gentleman thief — Arsène Lupin — seem to exist, and Diop explains that at some point in his past, he was bestowed some sort of gift (a book, presumably) that put him on a path that would change his life. Whatever the gift is exactly, it leads Diop to untold wealth, unlimited resources, and “several lives” to make use of it all, which could have a number of different meanings depending on how you interpret it. On the one hand, the line could simply be referring to Lupin, and now Diop’s use of disguises and false identities to pull off his heists. Alternatively, though, Lupin’s canonical adventures involving a search for the Fountain of Youth could mean that whatever wildness Diop’s getting into could involve him literally having lived multiple lifetimes.

Lupin’s trailer also has a very pronounced James Bond sort of energy to it that promises the series won’t just be a collection of scenes in which Sy tiptoes around museums boosting priceless works of art. Whether that’s going to be enough to make Lupin a runaway success won’t be clear until it hits Netflix sometime in January.