(The first rule of gay fight club?  You don’t even wanna know, dude.)

Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, comes out Christmas Day.  I’m cautiously optimistic — it could be good, or it could be sort of meh, like Guy Ritchie’s body of work since Snatch.  But that’s the thing about Hollywood: they don’t even wait for the goose to lay the golden egg before they start pumping it full of hormones and jamming a shoehorn up its ass* nowadays.

Three months ahead of the release of its Robert Downey Jr. action pic, Warners is developing a new installment. The studio is poised to bring on Kieran and Michele Mulroney, the scribes who are penning its “Justice League: Mortal” [barf] tentpole, to pen a draft of the new tale. Brad Pitt has had discussions with producers to star as Holmes’ nemesis Moriarty in the new pic, say people familiar with the project, though there is no deal in place for him to take the part.

Guy Ritchie helms the pic, and Downey stars as the title character; Jude Law plays protege Watson, and Rachel McAdams stars as love interest Irene Adler. Much of the talent is expected to return in the new pic, as could Ritchie as director. [THR]

“Is expected…”  “Could return” — these are the key words.  Basically, the studio thinks Sherlock Holmes is going to do well, so they want to make sequel.  But getting the cast and director locked down is a complicated process with lots of negotiation about salary and scheduling and stuff.  So they’re starting the process early, by paying two guys who had nothing to do with the original script a lot of money to write a script for the sequel, which they’re probably going to throw out and re-write as soon as Ritchie and the rest are locked down and they bring in writers they like.  But as they say in Hollywood, you gotta piss money down the toilet for no reason to make money.

*a butthorn?

Guy Ritchie has agreed to direct a film adaptation of the DC Comic Lobo for Warner Bros, which is interesting, because if I were him, I’d be down at the print shop making business cards that said “Director of Snatch.” Anyway, apparently the character was originally meant to be a parody, though it’s unclear whether the film will be. From Wiki:

An alien, Lobo works as an interstellar mercenary and bounty hunter. Although introduced as a hardened, rarely-used noir villain in the 1980s, he languished in limbo until his revival as an anti-hero biker in the early 1990s. The character enjoyed a short run as one of DC’s most popular characters throughout the 1990s. This version of Lobo was intended to be an over-the-top parody of Marvel Comics superhero Wolverine. “I have no idea why Lobo took off,” [co-creator Keith] Giffen once said in an interview. Referring to the 1990s incarnation of Lobo he created, he said, “I came up with him as an indictment of the Punisher, Wolverine, hero prototype and somehow he caught on as the high violence poster boy. Go figure.”

Says Variety:
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Today in pointless speculation news, the New York Post wonders whether Robert Downey Jr.’s newer, ‘gayer’ Sherlock Holmes will have an effect on its box office gross.  Wait, what?

Downey has revealed the crimebuster will sleep with and have sweaty grappling scenes with Watson, played by Jude Law, in “Sherlock Holmes,” due out Christmas Day.

“We’re two men who happen to be roommates, wrestle a lot and share a bed. It’s bad-ass,” Downey told Britain’s News of the World. Added Law: “Guy wanted to make this about the relationship between Watson and Holmes. They’re both mean and complicated.”

But Michael Medved, a former Post movie critic, says Downey and Law must be joking. “I think they’re just trying to generate controversy . . . They know that making Holmes and Watson homosexual will take away two-thirds of their box office.” Medved told us. “There’s not a seething, bubbling hunger to see straight stars impersonating homosexuals.” [NYPost]

Medved added, “There isn’t a greasy, throbbing desire for all this gay stuff thickening inside anyone’s jeans, okay?  There aren’t beads of yearning for it running down the crack of anyone’s ass in the male-only steam room.  I don’t have a secret passion for it on the weekends that I keep from my wife and kids.  Trust me on this one, I’m not gay.  I mean, uh, Sherlock Holmes is gay?  That’s gross.”

The new international trailer for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes has just hit the web.  New Holmes apparently isn’t as much for book larnin’ as old Holmes, and spends most of his time diving out of buildings, boxing, dodging explosions, hammer fighting, and practicing bartitsu, which isn’t nearly as drunk or sexy as it sounds.  In fact, the new trailer is almost identical to the domestic one I posted a few months ago, the only difference I can see being that the old one ends with Holmes handcuffed naked to a bed, while the new one ends with Jude Law punching him in the face.  And as we all know, every time a guy gets handcuffed naked to a bed and punched in the face, David Carradine’s angel gets its wings.  And then the ninjas come.
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Last night the first trailer for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes hit the web and ta da!  You can watch it here.  It’s been a long time since Guy Ritchie made a good movie, but with Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, and Mark Strong onboard, he’s got just about the best cast you could ask for this time around.  And judging by the trailer, in this incarnation, Sherlock spends as much time boxing, diving through windows, nailing chicks, and dodging explosions as he does using logic and science.  I can’t wait until 10-15 years from now when another one comes out and it’s even more dumbed down.  I imagine Watson demanding to know, “How do you do it, Holmes?”   And then Holmes will take a massive bong rip, tap his index finger to his temple, and say, “Hella mentally, my Dear Watson. (*cough*)”

Also available in HD at Yahoo.