Moss, Holmes, Mank: Weekly Round Up

15th July 2019

Moss, Holmes, Mank: Weekly Round Up…

Last week we got the news that Henry Cavill had been cast in the role of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic mystery solver, who has appeared in many films and television series since the beginning of the cinema. I complained Cavil was a bad choice, and referenced the fact that I felt Downey Jr’s take of the character was one of the better ones. It is, I said, a disappointment that the third in his, Jude Law and Guy Ritchie’s trilogy have never materialized.

But this week there was news on the project! News that has me tentatively excited.

Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes was released in 2009 to a relatively decent box office taking and critical reception. I, for one, thought it was a lot of fun, and, while I found it frustrating they didn’t choose to simply adapt one of the excellent original stories, definitely preferred it to that tosh with Benedict Cumberland Sausage and Tim from The Office (I really, really don’t get why people love that show so much. It’s sooooo bad). I was a big fan of Downey Jr’s portrayal, but the real star was, for me, Jude Law, who might just be the greatest Watson to have ever graced the screen.

Ritchie, RDJ and Law followed up their first outing relatively quickly with 2011’s Game of Shadows, which was equally good fun. Game of Shadows had a sequel bait style ending that practically promised audiences a third, and then…

And then nothing. The third never materialized. Quite why is anyone’s guess, although it’s a safe bet to say it wasn’t down to Warner’s lack of want. The studio have seemed desperate to get the third film going ever since the second came out, but Downey Jr’s commitments as a certain billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and Ritchie’s commitments to… other films, I guess (I know he’s done some in the in between, but none of them have been good enough to stick in my mind), are the main reason.

But, at long last, we have movement, people! It would seem Downey Jr. is ready to get back under the deerstalker, smoke some opium and play violin to flies, because the news this week was that he and Jude Law will be returning to the characters in the currently titled Sherlock Holmes 3.

Guy Ritchie, however, will not be. This could very well be because of his upcoming project The Gentlemen, which seems to be taking up most of his time, but fear not, for the dynamic duo of Victorian London are in safe hands, with Dexter Fletcher (who, oddly enough, appeared in Ritchie’s Lock, Stock…) taking the reins.

Fletcher previously stepped in when Bryan Singer was fired from Bohemian Rhapsody mid-way through filming, and he directed this years Rocketman, so he seems to know what he’s doing. Quite what shape the movie will take beyond that is a mystery, but Warner’s have scheduled it in for a Christmas 2021 release date. Thank God! Finally, Sherlock Holmes 3 is coming, and I couldn’t be happier.

And that’s not the only awesome news this week. After being absent from cinema since 2014’s Gone Girl (which is freaking excellent, by the way, and you should watch it), David Fincher, who also happens to be one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers, is returning to the big screen, and with Gary Oldman in tow no less!

That’s a five-year absence, and while the director has been working on projects such as the excellent Mindhunter, it has been a shame not to have a new movie from him.

It would seem his time working with Netflix on Mindhunter has formed a bond, as Netflix are the studio behind this new feature, which is a biopic. Now, normally I’m weary of biopics. They usually tend to be very predictable and not all that truthful, and they are often squeezed into a blueprint that is used and reused constantly. But, as if David Fincher’s involvement was quite enough to pique my interest (side note: it was), the subject matter of this particular movie definitely has.

The film will be titled Mank, and will tell the story of Herman J. Mankiewicz, who was one of the best screenwriters working during the “Golden Age of Cinema”. He’s the man behind several of the most famous Marx Brothers movies – including Duck Soup – while also being responsible for Dinner At Eight and Pride of the Yankees and, most famously, Orson Welles’ classic Citizen Kane.

When we’ll get to see this film remains a mystery, but we’re two out of two here for movie news so far. Will the third keep the trend?

Yes. Yes it will.

A little while ago I wrote about Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, and what I would like to see from that film. As a fan of all things horror, the idea of a Dark Universe based on the Universal Classic Monsters still intrigues me, and I would give anything to see it given another go after the utter shitstorm that was Tom Cruise’s The Mummy.

The involvement of both Whannell, who’s excellent Upgrade is well worth seeking out if you can, and Blumhouse, the studio behind basically every successful modern horror, was certainly enough to suggest that the property was heading in the right direction, focusing more on the scares rather than the… action blockbuster angle they went with for some reason.

But this week we got news that Oliver Jackson-Coen, who appeared in Mike Flannigan’s brilliant Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House, has been cast in the lead role.

Jackson-Coen is phenomenal in that show, so it’s exciting to see him tackling a lead role in a cinema release, but his involvement also suggests that previous reports Elisabeth Moss, from The Handmaid’s Tale, had been cast as the lead were incorrect. No Moss. Sad.

Either way. I’m excited for this one now, and I’m looking forward to more news as we get it. Let’s just hope Whannell and Jackson-Coen are able to deliver, and I’d love to see them capture the mad, psychotic energy of the cackling Claude Rains starring original.

Elisabeth Singleton Moss is an American actor. Moss is known for her work in several television dramas, earning such accolades as two Primetime Emmys. We love Elisabeth Moss.

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