Great news for Sherlock Holmes and Robert Downey Jr fans: the Iron Man actor will don the funny hat, the pipe, the drug habit and the accent to play the great Victorian detective. The bad news is: the movie will be directed by Guy Richie.
This might be a good movie if Richie can get his pre-Madonna brilliant groove back and do work like he did with "Snatch" and "Two Smoking Guns". If not, or if he finds a reason to cast wife Madonna in the film, it's gonna be a wreck.
The Warner Bros. release, due to start shooting this fall, will show Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's hero in a less stuffy vein than in his previous incarnations, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Early reaction to the Richie-Downey pairing is mixed. Josh Horowitz at MTV wrote: “Downey will surely make something arresting and innovative out of the part, but … does it have to be helmed by Guy? Does anything on his resume give you hope he has a Sherlock tale in him? I worry.”
Tru, Richie has only directed four films (two of them, 'Revolver' and 'Swept Away' blew chunks) but none were on par with something as big as Sherlock Holmes league. And "Snatch" was eight years ago!
With Downey aboard, the film will go into production before a comedy that just coalesced at Columbia Pictures, with Sacha Baron Cohen playing Holmes, and Will Ferrell playing his crime-fighting partner Dr. Watson.
