‘Sherlock Holmes 3’ Still Not on the Table, Key Cast Member Reveals

It’s been more than a decade since the last Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law came out, and fans are still waiting for a third one. But according to one of the main actors from the earlier films, there’s been no progress, at least not that he knows of.

Jared Harris, who played Professor Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, recently spoke with The Direct while promoting The Foundation Season 3. He was pretty clear about where things stand for him when it comes to Sherlock Holmes 3.

“Yeah. I mean, I keep taking that down [on IMDb] and someone keeps putting it back up. I have no idea. No one’s talking to me about it. And I really wish people would stop asking me… It should be on there. I mean, no one’s talking to me about it. I have no clue,” Harris said, sounding both amused and frustrated.

Harris played the classic villain Moriarty, first uncredited in the 2009 film and then as the main antagonist in the 2011 sequel. That second film ended with Sherlock and Moriarty both seemingly falling to their deaths, though Sherlock survived, of course. Since then, fans have wondered if and how Moriarty might return in a third installment.

The first two films were big hits, together making over $1 billion worldwide. They also helped cement Downey’s image as more than just Iron Man, showing his range as the famous British detective. But even with that success, a third movie has been stuck in development for years.

Back in 2011, Warner Bros. said a third film was in the works, and over the years, multiple writers and directors have been attached. Jude Law even said in 2013 that they had a meeting about it and that a script was being written. In 2014, producer Susan Downey mentioned there was an outline but no finished script. She said they wanted to make sure it was done right.

Since then, there have been updates here and there. Downey Jr. himself said in 2016 that filming might start soon. Then the script got rewritten again. At one point, the release date was set for Christmas 2020, and later moved to December 2021. Director Guy Ritchie was replaced by Dexter Fletcher, and the movie even got approved for a big tax break in California.

But once the pandemic hit, everything stalled. Fletcher said in 2021 that COVID messed up their schedule, and that Downey had other things to focus on. He explained, “We started going and then Covid hit, and they were like, ‘Look we’re going to stand it down and Robert has got something else he wants to do’… These things are so big that you don’t wanna just chisel them into something… I know that Robert will not let that fish off the hook.”

In 2023, Fletcher said that he, Downey, and writer Joe Penhall were working on the script at Downey’s house. And Susan Downey, along with Team Downey’s Amanda Burrell, said the movie was still a priority for them. But two years later, there’s still no official sign that things are moving forward.

The interview was originally published by The Direct.

With Jared Harris completely out of the loop and nothing locked in, the future of Sherlock Holmes 3 remains as mysterious as one of Holmes’ own cases.

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