In this franchise-saturated world, one series that seemed to have gone quietly into the night is Guy Ritchie's fun and footloose Sherlock Holme****s. No more. According to Jude Law, speaking to **Empire **for November's big interview, Victorian England's finest gumshoe may soon be dusting off that cane of his and taking some names. Names, we assume, like 'Moriarty' and 'Blackwood' and, to a lesser extend, 'hound'.
Law, who has already taken a couple of Sherlock 3 meetings with Warner Bros., has plenty of enthusiasm for the idea. "I hate celebrating anything I've done, but I'm so proud of those films. I think it was Joel Silver who said, 'Take it out of that dusty room and put it on the street'."
In a cliffhanger-off for the ages, both the big and small screen Sherlock Holmes adaptations are currently suspended somewhere on. or several hundred feet *below, *the Reichenbach Falls. The BBC take on Conan Doyle's tale will find resolution when it airs early next year. According to Law, Guy Ritchie's version may be tearing after it like a man in a three-piece chasing a hansom cab.
"I think Warners want it," says Law, "and there's a lot of want from us as a team. We want it to be better than the other two. We want to make sure it's smarter and cleverer, but in the same realm."
With a certain superhero world to service, Robert Downey Jr.'s schedule is a puzzle that would confound Holmes himself. The roadmap to the third instalment hasn't proved straightforward, as Law explains. "It's a slow process," he says. "We're all busy. So getting us together to try to nail that has taken a little bit longer than we had hoped."
With Iron Man 3 scribe Drew Pearce on scripting duties and a battle-hardened cast and crew to call on, it promises plenty of fizz as and when it finally comes together.
For more on Sherlock Holmes and a lot more from Jude Law, pick up the new issue of Empire, onsale right now.