James Coyne on Board to Galvanize 'Sherlock Holmes 3' Script Re-Write
With the first two films on the franchise having grossed each in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars, the pressure is on for the Warner Bros. franchise "Sherlock Holmes" to perform just as well, if not much better, in the planned third installment, "Sherlock Holmes 3."
The film has been stuck in the development of the script it seems, since 2011, when it was reported that Drew Pearce, who wrote "Iron Man 3," was tasked to write the story for the sequel to the second installment, "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows." All this time, there had been some lull in the updates on the movie's development.
Only now, a recent announcement may have just kick-started the next installment when Robert Downey Jr., who played the role of Sherlock Holmes in the first two movies, announced the latest good news from the franchise: James Coyne is doing a re-write of the script.
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Coyne will be teaming up with Lionel Wigram and Warner Bros. to come up with the much-awaited next story. The "Game of Shadows" ended with the familiar Sherlock Holmes cliffhanger. At the close of the film, the fictional world's most famous detective plummeted down the Reichenbach Falls along with Professor Moriarty. And so, the next film will somehow take the story from there, but not before explaining how the Holmes survived the fall.
Lionel Wigram, who was producer of the two earlier films, indicated that the development of the script is indeed what is slowing down the project.
Wigram told IGN some months ago, "We're working on a Sherlock Holmes 3 script. I 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."
It is not clear though at what stage of script development Coyne has entered, or what the nature of the re-write is—just mere polishing or some slight changes or a full re-write from scratch. The answer to this would give a clue as to whether fans of Downey's Holmes will be seeing the start of production pretty soon, and therefore, eventually, the finished film itself.
It would be purely understandable if expectant fans hope that Coyne would be the much-needed catalyst to bring forward the next story of the well-loved Sherlock Holmes.
The next film will bring back Downey, Jude Law (to reprise the role as Dr. Watson), and director, Guy Ritchie. Producing the film will be Ritchie/Wigram Productions, Team Downey, Silver Pictures, Dan Lin, and Warner Bros.
