Sherlock Holmes 2 – Brad Planned as Dr. Moriarty
After ‘Sherlock Holmes’ managed to uncover more than $65 million in its opening weekend, ‘Sherlock Holmes 2? is being planned with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law already committed.
But the big surprise will be the addition of Brad Pitt as Professor Moriarty.
“The director, Guy Ritchie, loves Brad,” an industry source tells me.
“He has worked with him before and thinks he is one of the most underrated actors working today. Guy knows that everyone thinks of as a Pitt as a pretty boy and can’t wait to turn him into the world’s greatest supervillain. It will definitely make the sequel a must-see.”
Pitt and Ritchie worked together on 2000’s ‘Snatch,’ in which Pitt played a mumbling, can’t-understand-a-word-he-says Irish gypsy fighter. He definitely wasn’t a ‘pretty boy’ in it, and hopefully that’s exactly what Ritchie can pull out of him again.
As for Brad, an insider tells me he’s “very interested in taking on the role and happy they aren’t considering his kick-ass partner Angelina for the part.”
Brad Pitt Out as Moriarty?
While it's been widely believed that Brad Pitt is a cinch to play the treacherous Moriarty in the next Sherlock Holmes film, the current villain, played by actor Mark Strong, tells Moviefone that's news to him.
"Is he?" said Strong, who plays the devilish Lord Blackwood, when asked whether Pitt is a go for the 'Sherlock' sequel. "I know there were rumors flying around and I know they certainly would have loved to have Brad come in and do it."
"I think there are other people in the frame, although I don't really know any names. But I know they wanted somebody impressive, so that if the film was the success that it is, it would leave the way free for someone to come in. And I think Brad and Guy [Ritchie] are friends from 'Snatch' days. It's as simple as that. I'm sure a conversation was had, but I honestly don't know if it means he's going to be in the next one. I've no idea."
This seems to contradict a recent report from Popeater's Rob Shuter, who was told by an industry source that Pitt is "very interested in taking on the role" and that Ritchie "can't wait to turn him into the world's greatest supervillain." Of course, nothing official has been announced yet, either way.
In the current film, the only glimpses we get of Sherlock Holmes' (Robert Downey Jr.) nemesis Moriarty is of his hands, but the ending paves the way for a Moriarty-Holmes showdown in the next film. Strong said he has no idea who "played" Moriarty in the current film, as Strong is not in any of those scenes.
Come back Monday for our full interview with Strong on working with Ritchie and Robert Downey Jr., his villainous roles in 'Body of Lies' and the upcoming 'Robin Hood,' opposite Russell Crowe, and how he feels about being mistaken for Stanley Tucci.
‘Sherlock Holmes:’ Brad Pitt STILL isn’t Prof. Moriarty
“Sherlock Holmes” is clearly the movie everyone’s talking about. Some Doyle purists have objected to the obviously high-octane approach used in the current film, arguing that Holmes is a cerebral character who solves problems with his mind. He isn’t the “hard-boiled dick” type that emerged with the popularity of pulp magazines like “Black Mask,” giving rise to characters like Sam Spade and probably epitomized by Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. Yet Doyle’s Holmes was no slouch in hand-to-combat, and Doyle mentions Holmes as having backgrounds in boxing and Japanese martial arts (“The Sign of the Four,” “The Adventure of the Empty House”).
Amazingly, the rumors that Brad Pitt is in “Sherlock Holmes,” opening Christmas day, are still circulating. It seems like rumors have been swirling for ages that Pitt is glimpsed in the shadows of the Guy Ritchie re-imagining of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic, Victorian detective stories, supposedly laying the groundwork for him to co-star in the sequel as the villainous Professor Moriarty.
On September 24th, a spokesperson for Warner Brothers specifically told me that Brad Pitt does not appear in “Sherlock Holmes,” and was not attached to a sequel at that time. The role of Professor Moriarty, if the character does indeed appear in a sequel, has yet to be cast. Producer Daniel Lim recently told Collider the same thing.
Moriarty was created by Doyle but isn’t all that major a character in the original stories. He was dreamed up by Doyle as a foil who could kill off Holmes when the author got tired of the character and wanted to concentrate on what he considered to be his more important literary endeavors. Doyle and Moriarty failed, as it turned out. Doyle hadn’t even written half his Holmes output when he wrote “The Final Problem,” which was meant at the time to be Holmes’ swan song.
Hollywood made Moriarty a prominent recurring villain in the long series of movies starring Basil Rathbone as the best known Holmes, and Nigel Bruce, who chiseled the concept of an elderly, bumbling Watson in stone. George Zucco, Lionel Atwill and Henry Daniell all played Moriarty in that series.
Interestingly, Boris Karloff, one of the greatest movie villains of all time and who was under contract to Universal during part of the period they were producing the Holmes movies, never played the part. He did appear with Rathbone in the movie “The Tower of London.”
Whether or not Pitt will play Moriarty is an open question. He doesn’t seem natural casting. He isn’t English and although now a legitimately middle-aged man, he looks younger. Hugo Weaving would seem a better choice. Or maybe someone think of digitally resurrecting Karloff and give him the shot at the role he never played but should have.
The villain in the current film is Mark Strong, who was in “RocknRolla” for director Guy Ritchie last year, and has been in no fewer than four films in 2009 alone: “Endgame,” “The Young Victoria,” “The Odds” and “Sherlock Holmes.” He has four films in post-production, including Ridley Scott’s uber-budget “Robin Hood,” is filming “The Guard” and is attached to Pixar’s live-action “John Carter of Mars,” which is scheduled to begin filming next year.