Amateur Holmesian Scholarship

Colin Farrell is now being linked to Guy Ritchie’s project, I’ve only seen Farrell in a few films but know enough of his reputation to see that they’re going for sex appeal here. I don’t think he’s right for Watson in the slightest… and I take issue with this snippet saying that Watson is ‘less incisive’ which is basically a byline for ‘stupid’. I think I shall take comfort from the fact I very much doubt they’re going to put Watson in as the comic relief, he’ll be reduced to sidekick again but hopefully sidekick with brains. Also, if Watson is going to be the ‘hunk’ it means he’s there to be the lady magnet to Holmes’s dubious sexuality… at least, I hope that’s the case.

According to sources for JoBlo, Irish hunk Colin Farrell is in talks to star as Dr. Watson in Guy Ritchie’s upcoming reinvention of “Sherlock Holmes”.

As of right now no one is “officially” signed on to play Watson, a role
that Russell Crowe was erroneously linked to the other week. Certainly
Farrell seems an odd choice to play Holmes less incisive documentarian.

Robert Downey Jr. is officially set as Holmes, Mark Strong is pretty
much set for a key role, and rumors of Crowe as Professor Moriarty are
still out there and have yet to be officially commented on.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news08/080910q.php

Seems Russell Crowe is still being linked, but to be honest I can see him as Moriarty – he’s a good actor… sometimes.

It seems that Moriarty won’t be a big player, although there are rumours that the film is going to turn into a series of films in which Moriarty becomes more and more prominant.

(Emphasis mine)

Russell Crowe Not The Nemesis Of Sherlock Holmes
By Josh Tyler: 2008-09-09

Russell Crowe Not The Nemesis Of Sherlock Holmes You’ve heard the rumors that Russell Crowe will be in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movie. First the rumormill said he’ll be Watson, now everyone’s claiming he’ll be the movie’s main villain, Moriarty. Well none of that is true. If Crowe is playing Moriarty, he won’t be a major part of the film, let alone the primary villain.

Our friends over at Moviehole caught actor Mark Strong, recently confirmed as part of the movie’s cast, on UK radio talking about the project. Strong revealed that he is playing the movie’s main villain, a character named Lord Blackwood. When asked whether Moriarity was the movie’s villain, Strong said the character is in it, but not very much. Lord Blackwood, not Moriarty is the bad guy of the film.

Instead, what they may be doing is setting up a series of movies, teasing Moriarty and perhaps focusing on him in the next picture. As Strong pointed out in his interview, “everything’s a franchise these days.”

(from http://www.cinemablend.com/new.php?id=10107)

After reading something in ‘The Sun’ that Sienna Miller is to star in Guy Ritchie’s Holmes travesty film, I did a quick hunt around the ‘net to find a slightly better source than ‘The Sun’. I found this article about the casting plus another worrying quote from the man himself:

“Sherlock Holmes is a bad ass in this movie alright.”

On a slightly related topic, I suggest you check out Mark Kermode’s rant about Guy Ritchie’s new film ‘RocknRolla’ (apparently an executive at WB said that the film is funny in parts and very British… maybe WB will loose faith in Ritchie and won’t let him go near another film) on his blog.

There was a scary rumour going round the web recently that Russell Crowe had been cast to play Dr Watson in Guy Ritchie’s upcoming film… thankfully this rumour is false as confirmed by Ritchie during a recent interview.

Ritchie also said that the film goes into production next month and that he doesn’t as of yet have a Watson, there was a bit of info’ released about the film however and it still makes me want to cry..

“[the film] will draw widely from the four novels and 56 short stories written by Conan Doyle rather than focusing on one particular tale.Ritchie’s Holmes is set to compete with a comic version headlined by Sacha Baron Cohen as the great detective and Will Ferrell as Dr Watson. The former will be an all-action adaptation emphasising Holmes’ skills as a boxer and swordsman, with the latter playing its subject matter for laughs.”

In talking to MTV news, Ritchie also said about making Holmes into an action character

“They never seem to manifest that [element] in some of the earlier productions they’ve done of ‘Sherlock Holmes,’ ” Ritchie said of what would separate his upcoming reinterpretation of the character from earlier versions. “We’re trying to bring a completely contemporary and entertaining perspective on an intellectual action hero true to his origins where he was more of an action guy originally.”

‘intellectual action hero’ ‘true to his origins’ ‘more of an action guy originally’ … are we still talking about Holmes? Did someone hand Ritchie a James Bond book and say “here, this is a Sherlock Holmes book.”

The producer confirmed my suspicions by adding

“It’s like James Bond in 1891,” producer Joel Silver added. “Nobody ever did the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ story as an action movie, and he really was an action guy. [Ours] is a big, wild action movie.”

it’s also been confirmed that Moriarty will be the villain but hasn’t been cast.

As for the other film, it seems like Etan Cohen is doing his research with “books about Victorian forensics, all the stories and dictionaries of Victorian slang.” In an interview with MTV news he said

“What’s been exciting is to do a giant comedy but at the same time try to be true to the mechanics of a Sherlock Holmes story like using the Victorian forensics that Conan Doyle used,” Cohen said. “It’s a cool opportunity to write a good mystery that also gets to be a giant comedy. Fortunately a lot of the stories are public domain now. We can actually draw on a lot of the situations and language of many of the original stories.”

It could be we have one vaguely historically and canonical accurate film that’s supposed to be a comedy and a film just using the characters of Holmes and Watson that’s supposed to be the serious one.

I suppose we’ll have to wait and see how it all comes out but personally, I’m still worried.

Guy Ritchie has lined up actor Mark Strong to appear as a villain in his upcoming Holmes film. No one is saying who the villain is but I’d say put your money on Moriarty as he’s likely to turn up.

I don’t actually know much about Mark Strong but I have seen him in both ‘Sunshine’ and a wonderful ITV mini-series a few years ago called ‘The Jury’ – can’t remember much about his performances in either except he played a bit of a thug in ‘The Jury’.

I wish Lionel Wigram would get off his arse and release the comic book series, I want to make a decision about whether I’m going to dislike it or hate it with a passion (based on information and quotes already known, I don’t think I’m going to like this… probably better than ‘A Case for Evil’ but to be honest this new film sounds very much like it).

The Guardian are reporting that Robert Downey Jr is to play Holmes in Guy Ritchie’s upcoming new interpretation of the canon.

However, there is a piece of good news in the article:

The other possible outcome is that one or other of the projects could be shelved as the studios backing them get cold feet. A planned telling of the life of poet Dylan Thomas from Pierce Brosnan’s Irish Dreamtime company was dropped after John Maybury’s similarly-themed The Edge of Love was announced. Michael Sheen was to play Thomas, with Miranda Richardson as his wife, Caitlin. But the project has not yet seen the light of day, despite being announced three years ago.

With a bit of luck, the shelved project with the Judd Apatow produced one it looks like it’s lagging behind as, again according to the Guardian, there’s no director announced for the project whilst the Warner Brother’s one seems to have everything on track… you never know, the talk around the blog-o-sphere has been quite critical of both projects so maybe they’ll pick up on the already negative publicity and chicken out.