Sacha Baron Cohen + Will Ferrell = Sherlock Holmes + Dr. Watson
Filed under: Comedy, Mystery & Suspense, Sony, Remakes and Sequels
Columbia Pictures is prepping a comedy in which Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell will play iconic characters Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, respectively. Already you know if you're going to see this movie or not, right? Count me in the 'definitely interested' pile, but then I'm one of the only people who thought Semi-Pro was freakin' hilarious, so maybe I'm just a sucker for Will Ferrell. And Sacha Cohen as Sherlock Holmes? That sounds potentially priceless. Like Peter Sellers caliber funny. (Maybe.)
Comedy flick gold-miner Judd Apatow is (of course) on board as a producer, but the director has not been specified just yet. (Nor has the name of the movie, come to think of it.) The screenplay comes from Etan Cohen, he of (still funny) Idiocracy and the upcoming (hilarious-looking) Tropic Thunder. As Variety so capably points out, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Ferrell worked together recently (not to mention humorously and very profitably) in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
More info on this comedy project as it becomes available, but I would like to take this opportunity to recommend a very underrated 1988 comedy called Without a Clue. The gag there was that Dr. Watson (Ben Kingsley) was actually the brains of the operation, whereas Sherlock Holmes (Michael Caine) was nothing more than a drunken buffoon of a stage actor. Funny little flick, but I refuse to buy the DVD because it's Pan & Scan only. Which is disgusting.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-02-2008 @ 8:59AM
Riley Freeman said...
while will ferrell has grown on me i find the only thing funny about semi pro was the song love me sexyyyyyyy lol. the movie in general was not funny. it wasnt boring either just not funny. I bought because i relied on will ferrell to give me the same ol but they made him more of a good guy than a complete idiot as his other movies so the jokes were lacking.
this does look like it could be funny.so im in already. now lets get back to that dark knight countdown
"Now here we....GO"
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7-02-2008 @ 9:35AM
schue19 said...
Nothing about this sounds good to me.
Like Robin Williams, I don't find Will Ferrell funny in the slightest - although I've enjoyed both in more serious roles (Stanger Than Fiction; Good Will |Hunting etc...).
And SBC is a bit of a one-trick-pony who, while funny, is probably only funny in his own creations.
Hopefully I'm wrong, but as I love Sherlock Holmes I'd hate to see it spoilt.
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7-02-2008 @ 11:40AM
erik said...
i'm with schue19 on this one. Sherlock Holmes and Watson are great iconic characters and i just can't picture will ferrell and cohen in the roles. well, Will Ferrell maybe because he's played some good serious roles but not Cohen at all. Even though Without a Clue didn't really work, Ben Kingsley and Michael Caine played it with class and with tongue in cheek affection toward the characters and the stories. Plus not as many movies had raunchy humor back in as they did today. If Will Ferrell and Cohen play it with the same class and admiration that Ben Kingsley and Michael Caine have, then it might work. but if they do an all out rauncy version, they'll have run the names of the characters into the mud and made a lot of fans really mad.
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7-02-2008 @ 5:11PM
Jonathan Kuhn said...
If this were to be played straight, or at least done low-key, I'd say it has potential.
But something tells me the script will find some reason for Watson to run around with no shirt on, and for him to kiss Sherlock in order to get out of some situation.
http://www.slowclapchildren.blogspot.com
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7-03-2008 @ 7:29AM
Steve Seitz said...
The very idea of this appalls me.
These two base their comedy in stupidity, and what we love in Sherlock Holmes is intellect. While there have been some very fine Sherlockian comedies, I doubt this will be one of them.
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7-18-2008 @ 6:15PM
Jsuttner17 said...
the movie is not aimed at being a classic sherlock holmes theme. its making a parody of sherlock and watson. if u really really love sherlock holmes and his intelect then this movie may ruin some of tht for u but the movie is suposed to be a comedy not a serious role like stranger than fiction.
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