We’d love to take the credit for this after we wrote an open letter to Guy Ritchie in September warning him off a potential “Lobo” film, but it looks like the success of “Sherlock Holmes” did the dirty work for us.
In an interview with the LA Times, producer Joel Silver said of Ritchie directing “Lobo”: “I don’t think he’s going to do it now. The studio wants us and Guy to focus on making another ‘Sherlock Holmes.’ So I think we’re going to be doing that. But we’re seeing what happens with this. Everybody is analyzing everything. It’s all kind of happening right now as we talk. ‘Sherlock’ is sitting at just about $400 million in worldwide gross and showing itself to be pretty effective and pretty strong. So we’re trying to see if we can do something quickly with another ‘Sherlock Holmes’ movie. We have some ideas and some good story points.”
We’re not sure why Silver is acting all coy about the “Sherlock Homes” sequel when it was announced earlier this month that Robert Downey Jr. stepped away from Jon Favreau’s “Cowboys & Aliens” in order to prevent scheduling conflicts with filming. We’re guessing there isn’t a script in place yet but we imagine that problem will be remedied soon.
But what about Ritchie returning to “Lobo,” after “Sherlock Holmes 2” is in the can? Not likely, says Silver: “I would guess a dfferent director. It’s all happening at once now. Everybody is talking about everything …. It’s an ongoing conversation. Downey loves the experience of playing Sherlock and would love to play him again, and I’d love to see him play it again. Jude and all of them will be back and it will be great.” And as for Brad Pitt appearing as Moriarty? “Well, I mean, we talked about that at one point, but you know as of right now we’re not sure what we’re going to do. We’ll see what happens.” Right.
So there you have it. Silver is getting rich, the leads are happy, the studio is excited and “Sherlock Holmes 2” is pretty much a certainty. While we still miss the Ritchie of “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,” we’re glad he’s not getting sucked into the vortex of comic book adaptations, particularly those involving Akiva Goldsman. One request? Please no “Sherlock Holmes 2” IN 3D IMAX ZOMG. Ok? Thanks.
