10 Movie Sequels Stuck In Production Hell

Guy Ritchie's two Sherlock Holmes films - released in 2009 and 2011 - have grossed more than $1 billion combined, so it's little surprise that Warner Bros. wanted to get a third entry into production as soon as possible.

Yet the struggle to get a satisfactory script completed combined with Robert Downey Jr.'s busy schedule working in the Marvel Cinematic Universe caused Sherlock Holmes 3 to make little headway in the years that followed.

Shooting was supposedly set to begin numerous times throughout the 2010s yet never came to fruition, and though Dexter Fletcher was appointed as director in July 2019, shooting never got started, ensuring the film missed its announced December 22, 2021 release date.

In an interview with Collider last June, Fletcher stated that the pandemic "derailed" production, and though he remains confident that it will eventually get made, he doesn't know when.

But with such a huge chasm of time passing since the last movie, it's easy to believe that the audience appetite for a threequel just isn't there anymore, no matter how good it could be.

Plus, with Warner Bros. desperately trying to cut costs wherever possible, it's tough to picture them rolling the dice on such an egregiously belated sequel.