Robert Downey Jr. took his first steps outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in six years when Dolittle arrived almost twelve months ago, and it would be an understatement to say that he stumbled. The $175 million family fantasy bombed at the box office and was almost instantly labeled by critics as one of the worst movies of 2020 despite only arriving in the third week of January, but because this year was so unpredictable, it wound up as the seventh highest-grossing film of 2020 after earning $245 million.
Even though the actor publicly drew a line under his tenure as Tony Stark by saying he’d done all he could with the character of Iron Man, the rumor mill will continue to churn in perpetuity for the sole reason that he’s the biggest star in the most popular franchise, and a couple more duds on the scale of Dolittle might well see him coming back with his tail between his legs.
For now, though, he’s got other projects on his plate, like Sherlock Holmes 3. The pic was once scheduled for release in December 2021, but director Dexter Fletcher admitted that the film has been placed on the back burner as the industry continues to recover from the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic. In the meantime, RDJ has signalled his intentions to develop an entire shared sleuthing universe for HBO Max, while insider Daniel Richtman claims that the actor also wants Sherlock Holmes 3 to be rated R.
This immediately begs the question as to why, as the literary detective has never exactly been regarded for telling people to f*ck off when he boasts such an extensive vocabulary. Not to mention that he’s a lot more restrained when forced to resort to violence than bludgeoning his enemies in a gruesomely violent and bloody fashion. There’s literally no need whatsoever for any Sherlock Holmes project to be slapped with an R-rating, especially a long-awaited sequel to two popular hits that each earned over $500 million apiece.
All that being said, Richtman is usually pretty reliable when it comes to his intel, so we might just see the iconic detective head in a more mature direction for his next big screen outing.
