Maximus (Russell Crowe) in GLADIATOR.(2000)
© Dreamworks
Update: Crowe Is No Dr. Watson in SHERLOCK HOLMES
By: Jarrod SarafinDate: Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Source: The Sun, Empire Online
Update: As expected, this story out of The Sun was absolutely false. Director Guy Ritchie debunked it himself to Empire Online.
“I don’t have a Watson,” said Ritchie at the world premiere of his contemporary gangster flick RocknRolla. “Somebody just told me that I have Russell Crowe lined up but that’s news to me. I suspect that hasn’t happened and I’m still looking for my Watson.”
Original Story: This could be a whole lot of bs and might end up leading this Friday's rumor column. Or it could be true and be confirmed by another source any day now. Either way, The Sun is reporting that Russell Crowe wants to play sidekick to Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock Holmes. The Guy Ritchie-led adaptation will be based off an upcoming comic series that is revising the characters in a more serious and bloody light. The paper says that Crowe wants the role of Watson in the Warner Bros. adaptation.
A movie insider told me: “Russell wants the part, Guy wants Russell. All they’ve got left to do is dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”
Guy’s flick, backed by Warner Bros, sees Sherlock putting down his pipe and picking up a sword. Or, as Downey Jr puts it, Holmes and Watson are becoming Ritchie-style “bad-asses”.
He said: “I’ve got to spend some time with Guy and I love his take on it. We’re both martial arts enthusiasts and in the original stories of Sherlock Holmes, he’s kind of a bad-ass and a bare-knuckle boxer and studies the rare fictional martial art of baritsu.
“If you look baritsu up, they can’t even really tell you what it is, so it gives us a lot of leeway.”
He added: “It’s a period piece where you don’t modernise it, you just realise how modern it was.”
If this is true, this wouldn't be the first English pop culture icon that Crowe is involved with. He's also playing the Sheriff of Nottingham in Ridley Scott's upcoming revisionist tale Nottingham, a film which is currently on hold.
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If he wants the role I think that Watson is going to have a meaty part in the film. I just can't see him wanting to do it otherwise and play second fiddle to RDJ
Did Ridley Scott give him permission?