You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that Guy Ritchie is putting together one hell of a cast for his movie version of, um, well… Sherlock Holmes.
Robert Downey Jr. as the titular detective. Jude Law as his faithful sidekick, Dr. John Watson. Mark Strong as the villainous Lord Blackwood. Not bad at all. The only way a cast like that could possibly improve is if, say, Rachel McAdams signed on as Holmes’ love interest, Irene Adler.
Hey, wait a minute! Rachel McAdams has signed on as Holmes’ love interest, Irene Adler! Huzzah! If we had a hat, we’d throw it in the air!
McAdams – one of the finest actresses of her generation – has steered clear of tentpole pictures since her flirtation with the role of Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four.
But there’s a lot of buzz around Ritchie’s take on Holmes – not least because of the casting of the so-hot-right-now Downey - and clearly the 31 year-old Canadian has been suitably intrigued and thus ensnared.
As for Adler… there has been much speculation over the decades that Arthur Conan Doyle’s genius detective might – how can we put this delicately? – prefer the company of gentlemen. Certainly, in the stories and novels, Holmes tends to treat women with courtesy, but for the most part remains indifferent to their charms.
Adler, though, is a different kettle of fish. She appears in only one Holmes short story – A Scandal In Bohemia – and while there’s no physical liaison between the two, Holmes is impressed by her intelligence. So, when searching for a love interest for Downey’s detective – who, in Ritchie’s world, will clearly not be dead below the waist – Adler was the natural candidate.
Intriguingly, it would also seem that McAdams has signed on to the project, with the possibility of at least one more to come, the first time that Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes has been linked with the word, ‘franchise’.
Filming on the movie – produced by Joel Silver, Susan Downey, Dan Lin and Lionel Wigram (on whose comic book the project is based) – starts shooting next month. Cannot. Wait.
McAdams, by the way, will next be seen in State Of Play and The Time Traveler's Wife.