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Sherlock Holmes Series Universe Being Eyed by HBO Max, Team Downey

Published Tue, 05 Apr 2022 14:21:10 -0500

It would appear that HBO Max, Warner Bros., and Team Downey's Robert Downey Jr. & Susan Downey are looking to get back into the "shared universe" game, but this is more about smoking pipes and magnifying glasses and less about spandex. Reports are that plans are underway for a film-TV shared universe built around the Sherlock Holmes film franchise that stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. There are reportedly two potential spinoffs in play that would focus on a different character (with the characters having not been introduced prior), with Downey Jr., Downey, and Team Downey's Amanda Burrell executive producing alongside Wigram Productions' Lionel Wigram (who produced the two "Sherlock Holmes" films). But here's the hitch. While both Downey Jr. and third film director Dexter Fletcher are committed to moving forward with the film, that third film currently doesn't have a release window. So what ends up happening with the series side of the shared universe will come down to how things go with the third film.

Sherlock Holmes 3: Director Dexter Fletcher Waiting Out Pandemic — Jude Law as Dr. John Watson and Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). Image courtesy of Warner Bros

And speaking of Team Downey, the second season of HBO's Perry Mason takes place months after the end of the Dodson trial. Perry (Matthew Rhys) has moved off the farm, ditched the milk truck, and he's even traded his leather jacket for a pressed suit. It's the worst year of the Depression, and Perry and Della (Juliet Rylance) have set the firm on a safer path pursuing civil cases instead of the tumultuous work criminal cases entail. Unfortunately, there isn't much work for Paul (Chris Chalk) in wills and contracts, so he's been out on his own. An open-and-closed case overtakes the city of Los Angeles, and Perry's pursuit of justice reveals that not everything is always as it seems. Meanwhile, Diarra Kilpatrick's Clara has a new baby on her hands and has moved in with her brother's family. She can feel the walls closing in, though she has her husband's back amidst increasingly challenging dynamics at home.

Released in 2009, the first Sherlock Holmes film starred Downey, Jr., Law, Rachel McAdams, and Mark Strong, and was directed by Guy Ritchie from a screenplay from Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham, and Simon Kinberg. Then in 2011, the sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows hit screens, once again directed by Ritchie from a screenplay by Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney and featuring Stephen Fry and Jared Harris.