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Twilight SagaHe's probably the most adapted literary character in history -- and perhaps the only nonexistent person with an honorary degree from the Royal Society of Chemistry. Upward of 70 actors have portrayed him in more than 200 films, since the early days of silent movies.
But there's not been a major cinematic adaptation of Sherlock Holmes in decades. The classic films of the '30s and '40s, starring Basil Rathbone as Arthur Conan Doyle's immortal detective, shut down the production of Holmes films for years, and the Jeremy Brett-starring series on Britain's Granada Television, broadcast in the '80s and early '90s, has likely intimidated would-be filmmakers as well.
But heading our way are two very different films starring the Victorian detective.
The first, "Sherlock Holmes," stars Robert Downey Jr. as sleuth with Jude Law as sidekick John Watson. Though these are two respected actors, the Warner Bros. film will not be a thesp-fest but an action movie based on a graphic novel by Hollywood executive Lionel Wigram, who spent years trying to get the project taken seriously.
The film has finished shooting -- with most of the exteriors in London, Manchester and Liverpool -- and is scheduled to open Christmas Day. "I didn't want deerstalkers and pipes," Guy Ritchie, the film's director, said of the sleuth's famous hat and favorite hobby. "They're typical iconic images of Holmes, but we're starting from scratch."
The second, still untitled and in preproduction, will go for a comic tone, with "Borat" star Sacha Baron Cohen as detective and Will Ferrell as associate. (Etan Cohen, who co-wrote "Tropic Thunder," will write the screenplay, with lad-film demigod Judd Apatow as executive producer.)
Columbia executives -- who chose not to contribute to this story -- have said that their movie will be as different from the Downey film as "Austin Powers" was from James Bond. "Just the idea of Sacha and Will as Sherlock Holmes and Watson makes us laugh," the studio's co-president, Matt Tolmach, told Variety last year.
The films will be scrutinized, of course, by both general audiences and the millions of rabid Holmes fans the world over. "We've had to rely on our parents' or grandparents' Holmes," said Barbara Roden, a member of the Baker Street Irregulars fan group who runs Calabash, a press in British Columbia for Sherlockian research. "I'm hoping we get a 21st century Holmes, one for our generation."
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