Film director Guy Ritchie recently talked about the possibility of a Part 3 for his Sherlock Holmes series, the famed fictional British detective, exciting fans of the franchise as well as those of the original stories imagined by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. An addition to his well loved and followed Sherlock Holmes film series starring Robert Downey Jr as the detective and Jude Law as his best friend and occasional assistant Dr John Watson has been long awaited, Part 2 having released in 2011.
This follows the success of Prime Video release Young Sherlock starring Hero Fiennes Tiffin released in March this year. Since the 1900s, Sherlock has been adapted in multiple ways for the screen, and even now, the legendary detective keeps disappearing and reappearing, keeping followers wanting and waiting, much like the original character did in Doyle’s creation for the pages.
Ritchie’s statement went viral within hours, with news outlets and social media picking up the implication that a possible third part to the director’s iteration of the British detective and his genius could be on the way. The director also alluded to being eager to make the film, and expressed displeasure at the studio’s ‘delays’ and artiste schedules not matching. This comes after the lead actor Downey Jr had made mention of a script for a part 3 in 2024, ultimately leaving the audiences disappointed. Understandably, fans are excited to see if Guy Ritchie’s comment will materialise into a film, or will the wait be a few years longer still.
From Page to Screen
Though Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes may be highly appreciated and anticipated, his rendition is hardly the first to grab eyeballs and viewer fancies. The character, originally penned in the 1880s, has seen several iterations across eras, languages and franchises, having been produced in episodic series, short films, feature length films, even finding space in spinoffs with their own franchises.
Sherlock Holmes appeared on BBC in 2010 in the form of Benedict Cumberbatch, in the series Sherlock, leading the cast with Martin Freeman as Dr Watson. The first season aired in 2010, and the last and fourth season in 2017. Each season had left the audiences wanting, with only three or four episodes per season.
The near two-year wait between each season also did nothing for the buzz to die down. The seasons covered an array of contemporary adaptations of Doyle’s short stories, the episodes also including the apparent death and resurrection of the character, true to the original arc. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had killed Holmes’s character in the story titled The Final Problem (adapted for the show as The Reichenbach Fall) in 1893, intending to never bring the detective back and focus on other writing. However, due to public demand, the writer was forced to bring the detective back in 1903, with his story The Adventure of the Empty House (adapted for the show as The Empty Hearse). We can see the same pattern playing out even today.
BBC’s Sherlock was set in the modern day — he used the internet, owned a smartphone, and performed experiments in a morgue laboratory. BBC’s Sherlock is also not the only one set in a modern era. American television series Elementary did much the same in 2012, except in lengthier seasons and in far more episodes. Interestingly, Dr Watson in this case was female and Asian, played by Lucy Liu, and Holmes remained British and male, played by Johnny Lee Miller. The series came to a close on its seventh season in 2019.
Expanding the Universe
Among the longest running Sherlock portrayals was the one by Jeremy Brett, who played the detective in 41 episodes of the Granada TV series, from 1984 to 1994. Brett’s iteration, having had many directors at the helm, is often considered to be one of the most accurate portrayals that the character has had — in resemblance to the text as well as the illustrations. The 2026 release Young Sherlock is also not the only spinoff of the timeless detective stories.
We have seen further expansions of the Baker Street world; in Netflix film series Enola Holmes who is supposed to be Sherlock’s younger sister, played by Millie Bobby Brown; The Irregulars, also a Netflix series based on Sherlock’s network of contacts and informants across town, among other productions. Further detailing and development of characters who found mention only once in the short stories, such as Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, Watson’s friend Mike Stamford, their landlady Mrs Hudson, and others has also been done for subsequent adaptations.
An Indian version of Sherlock Holmes, a series titled Shekhar Home was also released on Jio Hotstar in 2024, the cast led by Kay Kay Menon as the lead, supported by Ranvir Shorey and Rasika Duggal. Robert Downey Jr’s first film as Sherlock Holmes released in 2009, and then Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows in 2011, under the banner of Team Downey, the production house owned by the lead actor and his wife. The potential for another film almost 15 years later has come as a welcome surprise for fans of the literature and the screen adaptations, who have begun digging for clues on what to expect from the franchise next. Will Downey Jr’s Sherlock, if he comes back to screens, manage to impress over all the Sherlocks that came between then and now?