The first movie’s not even out until Christmas Day, but Warners are bullishly moving ahead with development on a sequel to the upcoming Guy Ritchie/Robert Downey Jr version of “Sherlock Holmes.” You’re not shocked either. The original script points to a sequel and the actors have all been talking up. Most recently in the newest issue of Empire. Robert Downey Jr. said, “We definitely agreed to renegotiate for a part two. We feel really strongly about that.”
After vehemently claiming this one wouldn’t be a one-off, Jude Law said. “The more you go back to the source material, the more you realize there is tell. We would love the audience to fall in love with as much as we have and then we can tell a whole bunch more.”
So now the studio has appointed writers Kieran and Michele Mulroney, who were behind the Ryan Reynolds/Jeff Daniels indie superhero movie “Paper Man,” as well as the studio’s stuck-in-development-hell “Justice League” movie, to write a sequel. Both Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, who plays Watson, are signed for multiple films, although it’s unclear if Ritchie would take the helm for a sequel.
Furthermore, the Hollywood Reporter suggests that “Brad Pitt has had discussions with producers to star as Holmes’ nemesis Moriarty in the new pic, say people familiar with the project, though there is no deal in place for him to take the part.” There were rumors a few months back that Pitt was going to make a cameo at the end of the movie as Moriarty, but this was debunked by Warner Bros (and our sources very close to the production confirm that there’s no way Pitt was on set during the recent reshoots – they were genuinely just pick ups, as Warners announced.) But clearly at least intentions were correct with the whole Pitt/Moriarty story and it just didn’t come out of nowhere.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Pitt won’t be joining the sequel, although we’d be a little surprised if he does, but maybe Ritchie’s pulled off the first movie in the franchise? One hopes that, if he does, he’ll rein in the ham a bit from his “Inglourious Basterds” performance. This is still a while off yet — Downey Jr. has “Due Date” and “Cowboys and Aliens” coming up, and the sequel certainly won’t be greenlit until after the first movie has opened. But if the audience does take to it? Expect to see it in theaters in a couple of years, probably with some terrible CGI Hound of the Baskervilles, or something…
Will it take place in the U.K. again ? “Now, I love England,” Downey Jr. told Empire. “But we might need to shoot the next one abroad. Jude and I’ll be texting each other. I’ll say, ‘Brussels!; he’ll say, ‘Gstaad!’ We’re really gonna dig deep for the next one.”