Robert Downey Jr. Signs on Officially for Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man 2?

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on July 10, 2008

Variety is confirming this evening what many of us reported back in early June as rumor: Robert Downey Jr. will play a swashbuckling version of Sherlock Holmes in a Warner Bros. film helmed by Guy Ritchie. This role seemed to be at the top of a very long list of prospective roles for the Iron Man star, who will be seen next alongside Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the comedy Tropic Thunder.

This Holmes will begin shooting in October in order to get a jump on another Sherlock Holmes project being developed very quickly over at Columbia Pictures, a comedy version set to star Sacha Baron Cohen as Holmes and Will Ferrell as Dr. Watson. While Ritchie’s version will be decidedly more serious — and possibly more epic and action-packed, as they intend to draw from both the literary and comic versions of Holmes — it will be interesting to see how the films perform against each other, especially considering the fact that they will go into production and be released in very close proximity.

No other casting details were revealed in the announcement, although Don’t Say a Word scribe Tony Peckham is on to write the screenplay.

Also interesting, the final few lines of the Variety story were a bit perplexing: “He’ll reprise his Tony Stark role in Iron Man 2 for Marvel Studios and Paramount, with Jon Favreau directing.” Hmm… Last time I checked, those two facts were up in the air. Did I miss something, perhaps? While we have seen no official announcements as of yet from Marvel as to Downey or Jon Favreau’s signing on to Iron Man 2, this does give us some hope. Either that, or someone at Variety isn’t paying attention. For now I will assume the latter and cross my fingers for the former.

And just in case you missed it, I would highly recommend checking out Downey in the spoof trailer Rain of Madness, which was released as part of the campaign for Tropic Thunder.

Which Sherlock Holmes project has you more excited, Downey Jr. and Guy Ritchie’s or the Cohen, Ferrell Apatow version?