Joel Silver has announced to the LA Times that Guy Ritchie set to be back for the second Sherlock Holmes film. With Robert Downey Jr. having recently dropped out of John Favreau’s inelegantly-titled Cowboys And Aliens, it seems the Baker Street boys are having a sequel rushed through production. There’s already plot info in the works, and with Ritchie dropping his current project Lobo, we’d be highly surprised if we didn’t see Homles 2 sometime in the latter half of the year…

It was about time Sherlock Holmes got the Hollywood treatment – audiences have been continually fascinated with Arthur Conan Doyle’s series of short detective stories through the years, yet they undoubtedly needed a little sexing up to succeed with a modern audience. Enter Guy Ritchie, whose new action-packed adaptation is certainly a departure from the original series, but nonetheless entertaining in its own right. The screenplay has enough intelligence not to completely insult fans of Conan Doyle’s stories, and it’s perfectly complemented by Downey Jr’s sarcastic, slightly camp take on Sherlock. This adaptation won’t set the world on fire, but it’s a fine two hours entertainment for a dreary winter’s night.

Sneaking under the radar to a cinema near you on December 4th is 44 Inch Chest. Some jaded souls might groan at the prospect of another addition to the long link of Brit gangster flicks, but this is no Guy Ritchie knock-off, oh nosiree Bob. This one’s got pedigree. Breeding, like.

Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming adaptation of the Mark Millar comic Kick-Ass has been picked up for UK distribution by Universal – which is damn good news as far as we’re cocerned. Vaughn, who previously produced Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and directed 2004’s well-received Layer Cake, has been plagued with difficulties in finding a UK distributor for the film.