ON a sunny September day on the banks of the river Thames, Greenwich Maritime Museum has been transformed into Victorian London—rather aptly for a place so closely associated with time. The Greenwich Observatory overlooks a bustling, chaotic scene—top-hatted men steady their horses on a muck-strewn cobbled street, and ladies in full skirts scurry along pavements. Moving unnoticed through the crowd is none other than Sherlock Holmes, once again embodied by Robert Downey Jr. This is not an average day on the waterfront; this historic site has been transformed by director Guy Ritchie and the cast and crew of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the follow-up to the 2009 blockbuster Sherlock Holmes.
Watching Ritchie on-set provides a glimpse into the fresh approach he brought to Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation. The director relished making Sherlock Holmes and even before the film became a global hit, he knew that he wanted to bring his collaborators together again for another go at the material. “When the film came out, the first weekend was so important to me because I was so keen about making a second one,” he says between set-ups. “I just felt that the first experience was so positive for creative reasons as well as personal reasons that I was just very enthused to make another one.”
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows reunites the director with Oscar nominee Downey as the mercurial Holmes and Jude Law as his formidable colleague, Watson. Even in downtime between shots, the chemistry between the two actors is evident, the results of their close work on the first film to drill down to what makes their characters tick and complement each other so fully. “We have developed an extraordinary faith in each other,” Downey says.
“We balance each other out well. I can really get hot about stuff and he’ll bring me back to the task of what we’re doing. I think Jude and I are very similar in that we can both be very passionate; we have two separate approaches to the same end.”
Having kept in touch from the end of filming on Sherlock Holmes, both actors had ideas about where they wanted to take their on-screen relationship. “I think we both felt that we had delved into Holmes and Watson’s friendship, and wanted to really expand on that,” says Law. “We’d laid down the bedrock of that relationship so that audiences understood the dynamic. To take the drama of this extraordinary relationship further was certainly an aim of mine. We knew where we wanted it to go, and, obviously, it was a case of making sure that was done with as much humor and clever, intelligent twists and obstacles for the two of them as possible.”
The magic of Downey and Law’s personifications coupled with the richness of the material made the filmmakers destined to revisit Conan Doyle’s world through Ritchie’s lens.
“The Sherlock Holmes canon is this incredible series of stories with fascinating characters, amazing ideas, and the greatest detective of all time,” says producer Joel Silver, who in addition to the first film has produced the Lethal Weapon and The Matrix franchises. “With the first movie, Guy brought his singular visual style, an incredible twist and a cool take on the material, and Robert really knew how to get inside Sherlock’s head. And there is a magic in the combination of Guy, Robert and Jude, so we all knew we wanted to get back together and make another one.”
Producer Susan Downey agrees, noting, “I think that audiences were surprised by the coupling of this great character dynamic—a buddy movie—set in this time period.” In contemplating where to take that relationship next, she says, “We knew we needed to deliver on what everybody loved about the original but also to give a reason to revisit it. What’s going to be new? How can we up the stakes without it getting distorted?”
One key to establishing a new film was Ritchie’s vision, which, says producer Lionel Wigram, he’s taken a step further with the second film.
“Guy has quite brilliantly come up with some amazing action sequences, like the boxing match in the first film,” he comments. “So, with this film, we all knew he’d come up with action like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”
The filmmakers enlisted screenwriters Michele and Kieran Mulroney to tackle a whole new story. “Michele and Kieran are great character writers and also have a terrific sense of humor, both of which we were looking for in this follow-up film,” comments producer Dan Lin, who along with his fellow producers returns from the first film. “Their script explores the natural evolution of Sherlock and Watson’s relationship after the first movie.”
The starting point for the screenwriters was to pick up the story with Sherlock immersed in his obsession—the elusive Professor Moriarty, whose deeds Holmes has been tracking on an elaborate, interconnected map of Europe. “Whatever dire scheme Moriarty had up his sleeve, we wanted it be big and bad and to feel insurmountable,” comments Kieran Mulroney.
“We felt like the stakes in this story needed to be proportionate to Moriarty’s appetite for evil. Our goal was to push Holmes and Watson to their limits in their pursuit of this man. His reach needed to feel very vast, far beyond just England.”
“Our brief was to springboard the story from London onto the Continent,” screenwriter Michele Mulroney adds.
“That immediately expanded the visual landscape and made for a more visceral storytelling style. It allowed us to take the characters off of their well-trodden paths in London and launch them into the unknown.”
This spontaneity is part of the fun for the actors as well, and is enhanced by the close working relationship between the two leads. “They can ad-lib as their characters in 19th century dialogue—it’s truly unbelievable,” Silver attests.
The two actors often spend their free time blocking scenes and discussing their characters during filming, ensuring that they have a dramatic shorthand that can adapt easily to changes and experiments with the script. “We talk about it and then we amend the script to suit what’s coming based on a lot of information we have from feeling rooted in the characters,” Downey explains of the duo’s working process. “We’re also looking for what’s fun, because if it’s not fun to shoot then it’s not going to be fun to watch.”
Law agrees that their close partnership provides more scope for experimentation. “I suppose it’s about coming to it with ideas that are precise enough but also having room for maneuverability, and room to make us laugh or challenge us to pull it off,” he muses. “I’ve never spent so much time on a movie set laughing, and also thinking, ‘Are we going to get away with this? Yeah, we’re going to get away with this; let’s try it!’”
“This is a process that has definitely carried over from the first movie because it affords Robert, Jude and Guy a lot of leeway to discover great things,” says Susan Downey. “It makes something that feels really fresh and fun and exciting, and it makes coming to work great!”
That sense of fun may be what brings the trio of Ritchie, Law and Downey together—and also what will ensure their future reunions. “I always wanted to come back and do a second one,” says Ritchie. “And I like the idea of doing a movie series that you can just keep making for years and years and years because I like the familiarity. I like that there’s an efficient shorthand. It’s just a relief to be able to work in that sort of fashion.”
While further Sherlock adventures may be coming down the line, for now, the team is thrilled with the film they’ve created. “I’m touching wood now but I feel like things have gone better than any us could have hoped,” smiles Wigram.
“The movie is bigger and more exciting,” says Joel Silver, “with all the wit and sensational action that you could expect from Robert and Jude, along with this incredible ensemble. All of us went into this project hoping to top what we did with the first film, and I think Guy has delivered a fantastic picture that people are just going to love!”
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Opening across the Philippines on January 8, 2012, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.
