The days when ‘big films’ on Christmas telly were circled in red pen by enthusiastic Radio/TV Times readers have long since passed. Cheap DVDs and 950-odd movie channels have made the ‘terrestrial premiere’ have all the impact of the phrase ‘starring Jim Cavaziel’.

There’s always the big screen of course, with the festive flicks offering a welcome escape from hateful relatives or having to grind through the likes of The Krankies’ ‘It’s Behind You’ Panto Special on Channel Five (at least we don’t have the horrors of Disney Time and Holiday on Ice to glaze our brains over any more).

So join us at the movies and let’s see what’s on.

Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows

Not the one where the world’s greatest detective and his faithful sidekick pretend to be Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch. No, its arch-mumbler Robert Downey Jr and wet fish Jude Law as Holmes and Watson in Guy Ritchie’s sequel to the quite-likeable-actually 2009 adventure. This one has our sexually ambiguous investigators taking on the dastardly Professor Moriarty (Richard Harris’s lad, Jared, in comedy beard and hat combo).

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Americans, as we know, cannot read. Which is why they make perfectly decent foreign-language subtitle films all over again, just after they’ve been perfectly decent successes, with big stars who speak proper languages like English. So here comes the second adaptation in two years of Stieg Larsson’s gloomy Nordic crime thriller, beloved of public transport users everywhere. Perpetually furrowed Daniel Craig leads with sort-of newcomer Rooney Mara as the titular Girl, looking like the offspring of Noel Fielding and a newly discovered tropical plant. David Fincher is directing, so let’s hope it’ll be more like Fight Club than Panic Room.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

If you groan at the very sight of Tom Cruise then you’ll want to dodge this. That the Mission Impossible films are usually crushing disappointments doesn’t help. The point of Mission Impossible is that it’s about a team, but once you’ve had to accommodate Tommo and his ego no-one else really has room to look in. Simon Pegg’s there for his chums at Empire magazine to fawn over, whilst Alan Tichmarsh lookalike Jeremy Renner competes with Cruise in doing action stuff. Pixar veteran Brad Bird directs. Insert your own Tom Cruise/cartoon character joke here.

Alvin and the Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked

Speaking of cartoons, the young ‘uns get yet another dose of computer/live action shenanigans from the USA’s answer to Pinky and Perky. Where we trotted the singing puppet pigs off to TV hell decades ago, the Yanks still peddle the squeaky critters to easily bored kiddies. As you can guess, they get dumped on a desert island this time round, with Jason Lee the human mug acting opposite thin air. If that’s no good, there’s Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek smouldering their voices into feline avatars in Shrek prequel Puss in Boots.

Hugo

The best until last with 3D that works, a charming story, great design and characters (including an appearance by Christopher Lee, the world’s coolest nonagenarian), and a love of cinema shining throughout. However if you want something more horrific and stomach churning, there’s a film out in January that makes Human Centipede 2 look like Bambi: Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. If the thought of those bus posters doesn’t make you vomit up your figgy pudding, nothing will.

Happy Christmas!

This was a guest post by Peter Sharples who has, to date, offered absolutely nothing of value to anything ever which is precisely why we like him.

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most abiding detective characters in literary history. Along with his sycophantic companion, Dr John Watson, the amateur consulting detective uses his powers of deduction to solve the most fiendishly cryptic cases in Victorian London amazing one and all with his capacity for lateral thinking and disguise as he does so.

Conan Doyle’s books have been adapted for television, radio and film on many occasions and every iteration of the classic stories brings its own idea of how the Holmes/Watson dynamic works. Just look at ‘Sherlock’, the BBC’s surprisingly enjoyable updating of the series which began with a reimagining of A Study In Scarlet and you can see that the world of Sherlock Holmes is as relevant to today’s audiences as those half a century ago.

Then there was Guy Ritchie’s enjoyable romp through Victorian London which starred Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law as the duo who cracked-wise and cracked heads through a story which had its roots in the supernatural and came with a very steam punk feel (you know, like Wild Wild West but not as crap).

Luckily for fans of that particular incarnation, Ritchie wasn’t content to rest on the laurels of the first film and in the pursuit of more money to fund his divorce has gone all out in order to ensure that there are as many explosions, gunshots, pulled underskirts and longing looks as possible. You know, to make sure that cinema audiences don’t get bogged down in one of Ritchie’s famously cerebral plots.

The new trailer was released yesterday and manages to cram about eighty slow motion ‘bullet time’ shots into a two and a half minute window, implying that the film might be entirely shot at half speed in order to make sure everyone can keep up with the twists and turns of Holmes’ psychological journey into the past, the present and his case.

Or maybe it’s just yet another dumb action movie with loads of explosions and moments of “minor peril”.

Watch the trailer and decide for yourself. Or don’t. It’s no skin off our noses.

Stephen Fry- author, presenter, actor, and Britain’s most popular choice of dinner party guest has confirmed that he is to play Mycroft Holmes, older brother to Sherlock in the planned sequel to last year’s surprise hit film. We say ‘surprise’ because the film’s director Guy Ritchie spectacularly wrong-footed everyone in 2009 by making a competent blockbuster about the 19^th century smug-bastard detective.

After a heroically terrible run of films, Ritchie has had something of a renaissance over the last few years.

First there was the marriage split. Whereas in 2000 us Brits were quite proud to have Madonna over ‘ere, buyin’ our mansions and shaggin’ our mockneys, in 2008 the dream has gone a bit sour. We were quite content with her being a humourless career disco-cyborg but then she pretended to be English.

We don’t even like it when Americans act English in films so we were never going to like that accent. Then it got worse and she became too American and adopted one of those Hollywood cults that only work on people who are that perfect combination of cash rich, spiritually empty and self-loving.

So in eight short years we went from thinking Guy Ritchie was living the dream to wanting him to save himself before he was sucked into the swirling vortex of bullshit that was building up around his missus.

All of a sudden the papers were full of stories about him escaping to the pub to be with his mates. The breakdown of his marriage finally got him those working class credentials he’d been searching for. Unfortunately there was still the sticky problem of his being a one-trick pony, and when your one trick is sound tracked by Ocean Colour Scene, it’s time to panic.

Critics were rubbing their hands with glee when it was announced that Ritchie would be directing a big-screen version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous creation.

Maybe Sherlock would be nicknamed ‘Deerstalka’ we wondered, and perhaps an east-end voiceover might describe Professor Moriarty as “one nasty bastard”.

Sadly for them, the movie was a well-directed piece of throwaway Saturday night action. It may have made little sense but it looked the part and the action was well shot.

Which bring us back to present day. The wonderful Mr Fry announced on Radio 5 that he will be joining Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in the sequel, scheduled for a 2011 release. The film will also feature Noomi Rapace from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

So there.

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10 - When imagination and profound bitterness collide – My Ex-Wife’s Wedding Dress

9 - When Disney and full-on perversion collide – Geekologie

8 - Cigarettes make you stronger. If you’re a robot. Which you almost certainly are not – SlantedScience

7 - Shia LaBeouf realises that everything he’s ever done is ultimately worthless – AmyGrindhouse

6 - We’re not fully aware of what this actually is, but it’s single-handedly prevented us from getting any sleep since about Thursday – Bestweekever

5 – In love? Want to bumlick your future overlords? Then why not get a robot to marry you? – Asylum

4 – YOU! Like sport? Like, um, Glos? Then you’re going to LOVE Sportglos - Sportglos

3 - An exhaustive guide to the costumes of Sherlock Holmes – ClothesOnFilm

2 - The most spectacularly inappropriate question ever to be asked during a news bulletin – Guyism

1 – Jesus, squirrels are BASTARDS…

Hey, guess what? Avatar is the top movie at the weekend box office again! Bet you didn’t see that coming, huh?

What? You did see that coming? You saw it coming because you’ve spent the last week unable to move for millions of identical articles about how Avatar is now the second-biggest film of all time after Titanic and what it means for the future of Hollywood and how James Cameron could basically poo into a bucket and you’d all go and see it? Oh fine. Be like that.

But still, well done Avatar. But let’s see how well you’ll be doing at next week’s weekend box office, against the mighty colossus that is The Spy Next Door starring Jackie Chan and Billy Ray Cyrus. Enjoy that second-biggest film ever title while you can, Cameron.

So Avatar is top of the weekend box office again. We have to admit to being a little surprised by that. Not because Avatar is too long (even though it is) or because it’s too formulaic (even though it is) or because it’s essentially a film about some lanky blue bastards who can plug their hair into horses (even though it is), but because of its radical political message. Apparently, according to Avatar, war is bad and it’s nice to be nice to things. Who knew audiences would be into something that profound? Not us!

Still, let’s not carp on about Avatar for too long, because it’s going to be the weekend box office number one for weeks and we need to ration our sarcasm towards it. Here’s the weekend box office top five…

1 - Avatar (Genuine question: is Avatar doing so well because people have realised that it’s much more interesting to watch when stoned? Because it sort of smelt that way when we went to see it. It’d also explain the unnecessarily long line at the popcorn stand and the fact that people didn’t fall asleep two thirds of the way through like we did) $48,500,000

2 - Sherlock Holmes (Now waist deep in a homosexuality scandal which probably won’t be helped by the news that Sherlock Holmes 2 will be an adaptation of the short story The Adventure Of The Enormous Arse Dildo) $16,610,000

3 - Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (What a week it’s been for Katy Perry. Engaged to Russell Brand and the fourth-biggest film at the weekend box office contains one of her songs as performed by a trio of shit-eating animated rodents with silly voices. She’s living the dream, that one) $16,300,000

4 - Daybreakers (It’s a heavy-handed allegory for oil, but it’s also got vampires in it. Something for everyone, then, provided you’re either a beardy lefto or an incontinent teenage girl. But, hey, who isn’t these days?) $15,000,000

5 - It’s Complicated (Named after a phrase popularised by social media. Look for its sequel,Hacked By The Iranian Cyber Army) $11,007,000

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Happy face and sad face.

Folded:

• Snow in London (watch for the Dunkirk sprit as brave Londoners don wellies and stand on train platforms tweeting)
• Happy New Year (we hope you shall be very rich in 2010, then die of swine flu and leave us all the money)
• Music channels return to normal (no more Noddy Holder’s Drippy Xmas Number Ones, Peter Andre’s Brain Dead Christmas Crackers, etc)
• Big Cup (notice your belt running out of notches? That’s because you eat too many of these wonderfully moorish chocolates. Now look in the mirror and say you couldn’t give a fudge neither)
• Sherlock Holmes (Downey Jr. wears an epic frock coat. You won’t pull it off)

Creased:

• Snow up north (the north? You do mean Watford Gap, right?)
• Jeremy Renner from The Hurt Locker looks a bit like Jeremy Kyle (that’s gotta be horrible for the poor guy. Jeremy, we mean, not the Kyle)
• Happy New Ye- (oh, who can be bothered)
• Careless tweeting (got a work account and a personal account? Don’t go getting them in a muddle and swearing at potential customers, will you)
• Taking the decorations down (do not be despondent, if Christmas gets any earlier you will be putting them back up at Easter – which would not make sense for all manner of reasons)

Guy Ritchie may have already screwed the chances of a Sherlock Holmes sequel ever getting off the ground.

Well not Guy himself, but one of the blokes in his movie, a little known actor by the name of Robert Downey Jr. No, we’ve never heard of him either but we expect great things from his career.

Okay, enough New Year’s silliness. According to reports, despite having only just been spanked at the box office by The Over-long, Over-priced Thunder Smurfs movie, the chances of a Sherlock Holmes sequel being made are already in jeopardy. In a recent interview on The Late Show With David Letterman Robert joked about his new movie having a homoerotic subtext, in which characters Holmes and Watson are gay lovers. He also asked the audience whether or not Holmes was in fact “a very butch homosexual.” Apparently, a little well-dressed man-on-man love is enough to ruffle the feathers of the copyright holder.

From The Escapist:

The estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has threatened to kill any potential sequel to the hit film Sherlock Holmes if it suggests that the famous detective and his associate Dr. Watson were secretly gay lovers.

Andrea Plunket, who controls the U.S. copyrights on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective stories, didn’t appreciate Robert’s particular brand of humour. She states that if the film does portray the men as lovers and if this were the implicit direction of the next movie she would pull the rights – leaving them well scuppered.

From Towerload:

Andrea Plunket, who holds the U.S. copyright to Sherlock Holmes is not happy that Robert Downey Jr. has been joking that the subtext of Holmes and Watson in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is gay. Said Plunket: “I hope this is just an example of Mr. Downey’s black sense of humour. It would be drastic, but I would withdraw permission for more films to be made if they feel that is a theme they wish to bring out in the future. I am not hostile to homosexuals, but I am to anyone who is not true to the spirit of the books.”

We like slightly skewiff sub-plots as much as the next lot. Avatar has the clumsily tacked-on love story – the point of which is to stop us whimsical lady-types from falling asleep during the multitude of action sequences. Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel subconsciously drains you of the will to live – the point of which we are yet to ascertain. The Princess and the Frog wants to teach viewers about the joys bestiality, with that weird frog kissing bit. And Nine aims to play the movie equivalent of ‘How many actresses can you fit in a mini’.

Back to the thinly veiled, sharply-dressed point. Copyright holder Andrea must not be one of us sophisticated Webbernets people. She seemed to have missed the lulz in Robert’s late night commentary. In spite of the fact that he was probably joking – and even if he weren’t this is a plot twist that might actually make a dull as dishwater pretence worth watching – someone’s probably going to have to say “Sorry”, for all the confusion.

We think Guy and Robert should both tell Andrea to hop it. But quietly. Really quietly. So she doesn’t get her panties in a bunch again, and pull the plug on the whole thing.

This was a guest post by Amy Grindhouse, who rocks worlds wherever she goes.

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From Paul Newman eating 50 eggs in the film Cool Hand Luke, to Mel Gibson eating dog biscuits in Lethal Weapon 3, movies and food have been closely linked.

So it comes as no surprise that in order to promote the new Guy Ritchie-helmed version of Sherlock Holmes, Warner Brothers have teamed up with that stalwart of American convenience food, 7-Eleven. Because when you think of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘s famous detective solving crimes in Victorian London, you also think of microwaving a burrito and swigging weak, lukewarm coffee.

Since mid-November the chain has been running the Holmes promotion, the main part of which involves you using a clue printed on your coffee cup to go online and unlock another clue on a special 7-Eleven/Holmes microsite, which then takes you to another Holmes teaser site, which then presents you with another mystery. If you solve that you apparently then get more clues leading up to the movie’s opening scene, which OH MY GOD THIS SOUNDS LIKE THE MOST CONVOLUTED LOAD OF SHIT.

7-Eleven’s vice president Rita Bargerhuff proudly states that “7-Eleven customers will get a peek at the Holmes and Watson characters on in-store signage with clever phrases promoting value-oriented offerings, like quality fresh food and coffee.”

The ‘clever phrases’ Bargerguff is talking about include such gems as ‘Solve Your Hunger!’ ‘It’s No Mystery!’ ‘Get a Clue!’ ‘Investigate Our Coffee!’ and presumably ‘Elementary, My Dear Breakfast Sausage Quesadilla!’

Of course movie tie-ins are nothing new, although the notion of Sherlock Holmes ditching the cocaine and violin in favour of an Oscar Mayer hot dog and a cup of Mountain Dew just might make it the best promotion the world has ever seen. It’s certainly beats their tie-in for the Wolverine movie – the ‘X-Treme Energy Cappuccino’ into a cocked hat. Albeit a jittery, short-tempered hat.

But it’s Burger King who are the undisputed big bastards of snack-related movie cash ins. This year alone they’ve offered collectible drinks glasses to promote the J.J. Abrams Star Trek film, and a frozen citrus icepick to drive into your skull for G.I Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra. They also ran a Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen promotion, by offering the most awesomely named hot-meat sandwich ever – the New BK BBQ DOUBLE STACKTICON.

In a carefully worded-bit of promotional copy, they stretched both the concept of a burger and how this is connected to transforming robots from another planet: “the Transformers-inspired burger allows guests to stack multiple burger patties, bacon, sauce and cheese similar in theme to the “combining” of Transformers characters in the upcoming film.”

Much like a normal burger, then. But Constructicon references aside, as long as the poster bellows THIS SUMMER YOUR HUNGER WILL HAVE FALLEN, I don’t really care.

So what can we look forward to next? Later this month Peter Jackson‘s version of The Lovely Bones will hit cinemas and naturally the theme of child murder will prove to be a big draw for fast-food tie-ins. Perhaps a burger that promises YOUR TASTE BUDS, LIKE SUSIE SALMON, WILL BE IN HEAVEN. And if we can all hang on to July of next year, we’ll get to see the Nic Cage remake of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – which will doubtlessly have some great food connected to it. I’m looking forward to some wizards-hat-shaped fried chicken – PREPARE FOR YOUR MOUTH TO BE ENCHANTED! No need to thank me, fast food marketing departments.

Who wrote this? Simon Swatman from Mediapill. What a delightful chap.

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When Henry VIII wrote his first Sherlock Holmes story on the severed necks of his dead wives sometime in the 1500s, he likely had no idea how long his sleuth would endure.

Yet here it is, some 500 years later and we’re still making movies out of him. And how, you might ask, can this next incarnation possibly seem fresh after all these years? Why, as best as we can tell they’re tying in Iron Man or something.

Also – they’re bringing in Brad Pitt. Or they’re not. But they are. Or they’re not.

Well it’s official – Brad Pitt is playing the part of Sherlock Holmes’ winged, semi-robot nemesis James Moriarty. We know this because it was reported by the Mirror:

“[Guy Ritchie] got in a right pickle with movie execs when they clapped eyes on the rough cut of his latest film… and felt like re-titling it the Mystery of the Missing Moriarty. They ordered the director to reinstate the great Holmes’ evil nemesis, pronto…Desperate for help, Guy phoned his old mucker Brad, who had starred in his gangster flick Snatch. Fortunately, Brad, 45, had a couple of days free in his busy schedule to pop over to Blighty to play the evil criminal mastermind.”

Sounds like a great idea – after all, look what Pitt did for Benjamin Button. Yeah – we’re talking real class here. Another reason adding him as an entirely new character last minute is brilliant is because we’ve heard it’s a sign of tremendous greatness when a script gets completely overhauled after it’s been 90% filmed.

That’s probably why it ends up the Pitt rumour is false. E! News says:

“By Jove, Brad Pitt is not—repeat not—snooping around the set of Sherlock Holmes. Warner Bros. is shooting down a widely disseminated newspaper report that the Hollywood hunk is planning to shoot a cameo as Moriarty, the archfoe of Robert Downey Jr.’s pipe-toking supersleuth. “The report in today’s London Mirror is completely inaccurate. Brad Pitt is not joining the cast of Sherlock Holmes and we’re extremely pleased with the production of the film,” a studio-sanctioned statement says.”

Well that’s too bad – because we’d already envisioned a terrific slow-motion bear fight Brad could have had in the end just as the credits rolled. The bear wouldn’t have been hurt, of course, but with the right CGI there could have been blood all over the place – now that’s a movie!

Actually, it’s probably best that Pitt doesn’t star with Downey on the film. After all, he’s a committed family man now, and the last thing anybody wants to hear is that he’s leaving Angie because a home-wrecking Robert is pregnant with Brad Jr.

That’s what happens on Pitt films, you know. Somebody always gets pregnant.

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It is as inevitable as day turning into night, Gordon Ramsay swearing and every odd numbered Star Trek movie being rubbish* – the summer blockbuster season is always ripe with disappointment.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news here but it’s true; this year has already proven that! - hello Wolverine, hello Terminator: Salvation – but there is hope and hype on the horizon – the year isn’t over yet.

So here at hecklerspray we have decided to compile a list of films that you shouldn’t be looking forward to, no matter what anybody says.

*Proven wrong this year so the list is fallible.

5. G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra

Clearly movies based on toys are the next ‘it’ thing – see; Transformers 2. G.I. Joe (or Action Man – The Greatest Hero Of Them All as we call him) is being thrust onto the silver screen this summer with ol’ jug-ears Christopher Eccleston being all bad and ol’ ‘I’ll get my jugs out for a fiver’ Sienna Miller being all moody. We’re not sure why this is being made but it’s got a following and some decent names involved. We just can’t help shake the fact it’s based on a shoddy line of toys and is just a walking, talking advert which makes us feel all used inside.

4. Inglourious Basterds

This is on here for a simple reason – It’s Tarantino, master of the over-hyped, disappointing film (See; Kill Bill vol 2, Jackie Brown). There is no doubt that while it may be filled with a few choice chunks of quotable dialogue here and there, it’s not going to come close to his first two films. Although Brad Pitt looks pretty bad-ass with that neck scar.

3. Sherlock Holmes

Luckily for the viewing public the c-word wasn’t invented in 19th century England. Shame for Guy Ritchie, though, as he’ll have to pad his script out with an alternative phrase to shove between every other word, in his adaptation of the sleuth spy’s adventures. Although, with Downey Jnr. under the deerstalker cap some hope remains but, then again, Ritchie hasn’t made a good film since Snatch.

2. Avatar

Picture this: you’ve taken just over ten years off of work to go swanning about in the ocean. Do you think you’d come back to work firing on all prune-fingered cylinders? Well James Cameron hopes so, as does his army of devoted followers. Avatar sees the director return behind the camera for the first film since Titanic took over the world. Not a single piece of footage, still or a decent summary of the plot has been released yet and with only a few months left ‘til opening it could all come crashing down for the man who once proclaimed “I’m the king of the world!”…we’ll see about that come November, Mr Cameron.

1. Twilight – New Moon

The onslaught of the screaming fan-girls hasn’t let-up since Twilight sucked all the joy out of rational cinema goers back last year. Still, the film has its following and all the principle cast return for more spooky/romantic encounters later this year. Presumably because Robert Pattinson realised he won’t get much work once the franchise is over and because Kristen Stewart was probably stoned when she agreed.

Can a film that gets made within a year of the original really stand a chance of being any good? Look at the Saw franchise and you’ll get an idea of the slippery path the Twilight saga is sliding down. Expect much denial from the fanbase come November when the film is released and the third entry in the franchise to dilute the formula even more the following year.

At least we only have to deal with the vacuous black hole of wit and charisma that is Robert Pattinson once a year – God forbid they start churning these out twice a year.

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Robert Downey Jr. is Sherlock Holmes…

Our inspectors are baffled by the mystery of it: somehow, our favourite Victorian hero was mistaken for Inspector Gadget. Guy Ritchie resurrects London’s drug-reliant super-detective and ditches his deerstalker hat for ninja skills and fruity dialogue. Accompanied by Watson (Jude Law), a plot involving the occult and other destructive powers sends Mr. Holmes on a mission fraught with explosions, bare-knuckle boxing and ridiculous acrobatics.

See him leap into the Thames from Westminster Palace, blow up half of London looking for criminals and get chained to a bed by a whore. Arthur Conan Doyle‘s quick-witted 18th century legend is dragged, kicking and screaming into the box office of the future, making a name for cheesy one-liners and walking stick martial arts. A sense of humour failure is expected from the purists.

So you’re Robert Downey Jr, perhaps the biggest movie star around right now. The world’s your oyster – so what’s your next move?

After the gigantic box office haul of Iron Man – one that’s likely to be repeated once Tropic Thunder is released later this summer – Robert Downey Jr can star in any movie he wants. But what movie has Robert Downey Jr decided to star in? A Sherlock Holmes movie, that’s what.

No, not the Sacha Baron Cohen/Will Ferrell Sherlock Holmes movie that was triumphantly announced earlier this week. Another Sherlock Holmes movie. A Sherlock Holmes movie where Sherlock Holmes is a musclebound action hero. A Sherlock Holmes movie where Sherlock Holmes is a musclebound action hero directed by Guy Ritchie. And there was us thinking that Robert Downey Jr had stopped taking drugs.

Occasionally two movies about the same subject will come out at the same time, and one always fares much better than the other. For every Dante’s Peak there’s a Volcano. For every The Prestige there’s a The Illusionist. For every Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves there’s another Robin Hood that’s both princeless and thiefless.

And it looks like we’re about to see another likeminded movie clash, because two Sherlock Holmes films are getting ready to go head to head.

One, announced this week, will be produced by Judd Apatow and throw together Sacha Baron Cohen’s Sherlock Holmes and Will Ferrell’s Doctor Watson. It sounds hilarious and is bound to be a giant hit. And then there’s the other Sherlock Holmes movie which will star Robert Downey Jr and sounds, well, cack. E! Online reports:

In addition to Conan Doyle’s tales, the film will also incorporate the Sherlock Holmes comics series, which painted the detective as more of a muscly action hero who just happened to be far more brilliant than his peers—and, most importantly, his adversaries.

OK, so it’s a Sherlock Holmes movie with a kickass Sherlock Holmes. That’s vaguely sacrilegious, but it will star Robert Downey Jr so it’s still probably worth the benefit of the doubt. That’s unless there’s another mitigating factor as to why we shouldn’t go and see it, like if Guy Ritchie’s directing it or anything stupid like that.

Which. He. Is.

So, in summary then – Robert Downey Jr’s first big film after Iron Man is a Sherlock Holmes movie that’s in direct competition with a much better-sounding Sherlock Holmes movie, his version will feature a steroid-crazed Sherlock Holmes and it’s all going to be directed by Guy Ritchie, meaning that it’ll basically have all the production values of a Cillit Bang advert and everyone will talk in shouty cockney voices like that bald knob from Masterchef.

Fingers crossed that Guy Ritchie hasn’t got divorced by the time he starts filming – this could well the only movie in history that gets better because Madonna‘s got a cameo in it.