Sherlock Holmes 3’s Main Villain Has Been Revealed

After years of waiting, Sherlock Holmes 3 is finally on its way. The last time Robert Downey Jr. played the Great Detective, with Jude Law at his side as Doctor Watson, was way back in 2011. Unfortunately, since then he’s been busy portraying some kind of superhero, so it’s taken until now for a third film to emerge. Production is due to start early next year though and, ahead of that, one major story detail has been revealed.

It’s already been reported that Sherlock Holmes 3 will take Holmes and Watson to the Wild West and now the villain they’ll face in the States has been identified. We Got This Covered has heard from our sources – the same ones who said Bill Murray would return for Ghostbusters 3 and that Ewan McGregor was coming back as Obi-Wan, both of which turned out to be true – that the antagonist will go by the name of Senator Cornelius Guest. Described as an affluent man of industry, he’s a self-made American who keeps a bowie knife in a holster at his waist. And apparently, his big plan involves stealing the nation’s gold.

It’s important to note that Guest could be a codename for the character being used during production, so he could end up going by a familiar moniker taken from the original stories in the end. Though he might also not, considering that the 2009 movie had an original villain in the form of Mark Strong’s Lord Blackwood. Right now, we can’t say for sure what he’ll be called, only that the description of the character above is what you can expect from him.

Details beyond that remain scarce, but we know that Guy Ritchie, who helmed both 2009’s Sherlock Holmes and 2011’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, won’t be returning alongside his leading men for this outing. Instead, Rocketman‘s Dexter Fletcher is taking over directing duties, and he’s previously assured fans that while he’ll put his own stamp on the franchise, he’ll still be honoring what Ritchie did with the earlier films.

Sherlock Holmes 3 is currently locked in for release on December 22nd, 2021. Seeing as this was recently assigned to Black Adam, though, we’d expect a change to the schedules to be announced soon.