Sherlock Holmes has been a character in movies for over a hundred years, but audiences have never really gotten tired of him. Most iconic characters can start to feel stale after awhile, but thanks to fresh ideas, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have constantly entertained. Of course, these fresh ideas often mean that certain liberties are taken with the source material. When I was growing up I knew very little of the actual stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle, because much of what was being produced was the effect of fresh ideas. There was Young Sherlock Holmes and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, both rather self-explanatory with their titles, Without a Clue, which depicted Watson as the real detective of the duo, and The Great Mouse Detective, an animated film depicting the duo as mice. It is surprising that nobody actually thought of this earlier, but the latest idea for Holmes is to portray him as an action hero.

Warner Bros. is developing a possible action franchise based on the Sherlock Holmes stories, and the studio is even working with Conan Doyle's estate in order to make it a respectful enterprise. There is already a script for the first picture, which is based on an upcoming comic book by producer Lionel Wigram, and it is going to be directed by Neil Marshall. The movie will probably be simply titled Sherlock Holmes, and while Warners won't reveal the storyline, studio execs compared the idea to Batman Begins (I'm also thinking of Sleepy Hollow, as far as reinventions go) and mentioned that in this version Holmes will get to display his talents as a boxer and swordsman as much as he does his brilliant mind. Hopefully they can actually make it smart like Batman Begins (actually it should be smarter) and not silly like some other current adventurer franchises like National Treasure and The Mummy.