Sherlock Holmes Spinoff Series Eyed By HBO Max With Robert Downey Jr. Producing

HBO Max and Warner Bros. are looking to build a Sherlock Holmes film-TV universe in the mold of the TV series offshoots of Suicide Squad and The Batman on the WarnerMedia streamer.

We hear that two potential spinoff series from the Warner Bros. movie franchise starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are in early development at HBO Max. Executive produced by Team Downey’s Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey, each of the proposed series would focus on a different character.

Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, and Team Downey’s Amanda Burrell are exec producing alongside Wigram Productions’ Lionel Wigram, who produced the two Sherlock Holmes films.

Unlike the Suicide Squad offshoot series Peacemaker and The Batman’s Penguin, which are built around existing characters, we hear the Sherlock Holmes spinoffs would revolve around characters that have not been introduced yet.

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We hear the plan has been for the characters to be part of the long-in-the-works third installment of the feature franchise. Originally slated for December 2020 release that was then pushed to December 2021, the third film has been delayed by the pandemic and currently has no new release date. The future of the potential series hinges on the fate of that potential third movie installment.

While trying to navigate Downey Jr.’s schedule, both the actor and the third movie’s director Dexter Fletcher, who succeeded the first two film’s helmer Guy Ritchie, have publicly expressed their commitment to making it.

Sherlock Holmes, which also starred Rachel McAdams and Mark Strong, was released in 2009. It was directed by Guy Ritchie from a screenplay from Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg. The sequel – Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows – was released in 2011 and was also directed by Ritchie from a screenplay by Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney. It also featured Law, McAdams, Stephen Fry and Jared Harris.

Downey Jr. and his wife Susan Downey run Team Downey and are behind series such as HBO’s Perry Mason and Netflix’s Sweet Tooth. 

Team Downey’s Sherlock Holmes series will not be the first TV adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work; Benedict Cumberbatch played the eponymous detective in four seasons of the BBC/PBS drama Sherlock and Elementary, which starred Johnny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Liu as Dr. Watson, ran for seven seasons on CBS.

HBO Max also airs Miss Sherlock, a Japanese series where both Holmes and Watson are played by women, a co-production between HBO Asia and Hulu Japan, while rival Netflix also ran The Irregulars, a series based on  a gang of troubled street teens in Victorian London who are manipulated into solving crimes for a sinister Doctor Watson and his mysterious business partner, the elusive Sherlock Holmes, for one season.

HBO Max and Warner Bros. TV declined to comment.

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