Director Guy Ritchie has a new movie out this weekend called In the Grey, and while promoting the new release, one reporter asked about one of his franchises that stalled at two movies. The original Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movie hit theaters in 2009, and it was a huge hit. Downey had just released Iron Man one year earlier, and after a Sherlock Holmes sequel in 2011, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Downey went all in on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and there hasn’t been a third movie in the franchise. During a recent interview about In the Grey, Ritchie gave an update on Sherlock Holmes 3.
In an interview with Collider, Ritchie said he wanted to make the third movie. “I’d love to,” Ritchie said. “I adore Downey, and I adored making those two movies. Look, I think it’s just honestly a question of just aligning our schedules. I know the appetite for it’s there, but the appetite for it from our side is there, too. So, we’d love to make that happen. I just don’t know how it’s going to happen. It’s amazing that it hasn’t happened.”
The biggest thing standing in the way of Sherlock Holmes 3 is clearly Robert Downey Jr. While Ritchie said that Downey wants to do it as much as anyone, the actor has a lot on his plate, both as an actor and a producer. It seemed that when Iron Man died in the MCU, it would open the door for more movies like Sherlock Holmes, but it just hasn’t happened. Now, Downey is coming back to the MCU in the new role of Doctor Doom for two of the biggest Marvel movies since Avengers: Endgame. If Doom sticks around after Avengers: Secret Wars, that will take even more time away from Downey’s chance to do larger projects like another Sherlock Holmes movie.
The first Sherlock Holmes made over $524 million worldwide, and the second made around $543 million. They were considered a nice counter to BBC’s Sherlock TV show, which starred fellow MCU actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. While the TV show was more cerebral and prestigious, the Downey and Jude Law version was all about the fun of Sherlock Holmes solving crimes and having grand adventures.
There is also the fact that Guy Ritchie is keeping busy. On top of In the Grey, an action thriller starring Henry Cavill, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Eiza González, he is working on a crime drama called Wife and Dog, with Benedict Cumberbatch, Rosamund Pike, and Anthony Hopkins. Interestingly, he is also part of the team behind the Prime Video series, Young Sherlock, which follows a 19-year-old Sherlock Holmes at Oxford, starring Hero Fiennes Tiffin in the lead role.
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