Sherlock Holmes 3 Coming?

Despite a strong performance from both Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes films (they each crossed $500 million worldwide) development on a third feature has been, for lack of a better word, stagnant. With stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law working hard on other projects (completing a combined and thoroughly impressive 13 films in the interim 3 and half years), perhaps time has been a factor? Well, producer Lionel Wigram says the game remains afoot, even if it's in tentative stages. Talking to IGN, Wigram confirmed he and director Guy Ritchie were on it:

€œWe€™re working on a script. €œI think we would all love to do one if we could come up with something that really was really going to knock it out of the park and was going to be the best of the three. So we€™re working on that €“ it€™s quite hard to do.€

Downey Jr. also recently confirmed he'd be interested in returning to the role, although given his recent status as the world's highest paid actor, I'm sure it'd be at a considerable price.

I enjoyed the first 2009 entry, with Guy Ritchie capturing an atmospheric Victorian aesthetic, compiling a neat arrangement of twists to help modernize literature's most famous spy. However the sequel felt perfunctory, a rehash built around the poorly fleshed out rivalry between Holmes and Moriarty, with Noomi Rapace's gypsy assassin marking a much less compelling female alternative to Rachel McAdam's Irene Adler. It just wasn't as much fun, even if the chemistry between Downey's Holmes and Law's Watson always prevailed. Would a third entry be able to invigorate the narrative, or justify itself beyond the base functionality of the second movie? Hard to say. But with Downey Jr's Marvel contract running down, and passions still high, maybe breaking out the over-coat and deerstalker makes solid financial sense. Not that he needs it.