There’s No Place Like Holmes: Downey Jr. Up for Sherlock Role?

However improbable, could Robert Downey Jr. be Sherlock Holmes?

Wasn’t it just yesterday that we reported the news that Robert Downey Jr. was first in line to play Hugh Hefner in the biopic of the Playboy founder? Okay, actually it was Wednesday, but close enough. Now the oh so very hot Rob is rumored to be up for another big role. IGN is reporting via Entertainment Weekly’s Hollywood Insider blog that Downey is looking at a role in the upcoming Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes film.

The assumption, of course, would be that Downey’s up for the title role. However, that’s not stated outright anywhere. He certainly could be looking at playing the logic loving detective, but it’s not like there aren’t other roles available that would be fun. They’re supposedly trying to put a really new spin on the stories and characters (because apparently it’s not been working, sarcasm sarcasm), so he could be a wildly new take on Watson. He could be up for Holmes’s archenemy Moriarty; it’s always good fun to play the bad guy, and Moriarty is one of the more intriguing. Or he could even be looking at another smaller but key role in whichever mystery they’re doing; Downey’s got a lot of offers out there right now and might want to just squeeze in a little something here just for kick. Or then again, after all that, he could be up for Holmes, though with Holmes’s well-known drug use, I don’t know if he wants to go there…or maybe that’s exactly what he wants. Hmm.