With work on the Sherlock Holmes sequel script now well underway (director Guy Ritchie is tinkering with it as he gets ready to shoot the thing and get it into cinemas for December 2011), new rumours have started to crop up about one of the biggest elements of the new movie: who will play the big bad, Professor Moriarty. “Easy,” you might scoff, “everyone assumes it’ll be Brad Pitt.” But hold your horses, folks: according to Superhero Hype, there are some other names in the mix, including new top wish list candidate Daniel Day Lewis.
While both the site and we want to stress that this idea is sauntering around the darker corners of Speculation Alley, looking for a good time with a cheap strumpet, the idea of Day-Lewis as Moriarty is both a great idea and an unlikely one.
We’re not sure he’d actually agree to do the part – DD-L is not usually found in blockbuster movies, after all – but after wonderfully nuanced villainous roles in Gangs of New York and There Will Be Blood, we can see him twirling a moustache as the evil prof.
And he’s not the only one possibility floating around out there – Javier Bardem, Gary Oldman and Sean Penn are also listed as possible bad guys to go up against Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson.
Still, all this could be someone overhearing Ritchie tick off a list in the pub of people he might want to ask about for the part, and there’s always the chance that Pitt could still be in with a chance.
If you had the power, who would you shove into the role? Any of the above? Or someone else?