Not Again!

Dumbstruck by not one but two films in development chronicling the life of Charles Darwin, my screenplay suddenly felt very flaccid. While I’m nowhere near abandoning it, the thought did cross my mind that perhaps I should shift gears and move on to one of the other ideas that have been floating around in my head for years.

When I worked in Washington D.C. (now over a decade ago!) I used to ride the train into Capitol Hill from Virginia where was staying. The 45-minute commute gave me ample time to read. After plowing through biographies of Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln, I turned to “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.”

I fell in love with the master sleuth and realized immediately that aside from a smattering of BBC and PBS productions, Holmes had been all but ignored on the silver screen — at least in recent years. Someday, I told myself, I will write the definitive Sherlock Holmes screenplay. I even had the perfect Holmes in mind: Jeremy Irons.

And so it was, as I began contemplating the new screenplay this month, that Variety today announced:

“It's elementary, my dear Watson -- reimagine Sherlock Holmes as an action-adventure sleuth and you may uncover a new film franchise.

Warner Bros. Pictures is teaming with producer Lionel Wigram to adapt Wigram's upcoming comicbook "Sherlock Holmes" for the bigscreen.

Exact storyline is being kept under wraps, but creative execs at Warners say they are looking for the "Sherlock" team to reinvent the sleuth and his loyal No. 2 Dr. Watson in much the same edgy way that Christopher Nolan has reimagined Batman for Warners.”

Not again!