Guy Ritchie on His Sherlock Holmes Movie (I'm Worried)

Guy Ritchie came to Comic-Con International to promote his London crime film "RocknRolla" but talked to LA Times' Geoff Boucher about his Sherlock Holmes project, which will star Robert Downey Jr. as Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic sleuth.

"I'm very excited about it, Robert is brilliant," Ritchie said. "I came to the character through the books when I was young and what the film will reflect is the intelligence on the page and also the action. There's quite a lot of intense action sequences in the stories; sometimes that hasn't been reflected in the movies. it's been a relatively long time since there's been a film version that people embraced. I want to make a very contemporary film as far as the tone and texture. It's exciting for me to do a period piece, that's a departure."

Ritchie said his Holmes will be a man of adventure in a gritty world, not a prim thinker in staid parlor play. "There's a darkness to the movie we want to make," said Ritchie, who will be adapting Lionel Wigram's upcoming comic book tale about Holmes as opposed to the classic canon.

Wait! You have RDJr in your movie, an actor who can play troubled geniuses better than any actor out there, and your making him an action hero? Sherlock Holmes? Really?!? I'll file this under "tentatively cool" but with reservations.