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Sacha Baron Cohen to Say "Elementary, My Dear Will Ferrell"

Written by Arya Ponto

Wednesday, 02 July 2008

You know what they say... if you can't make it, make fun of it. Okay, maybe they don't say that, but let's just say that they did. First we've got Seth Rogen on Green Hornet, then Jonah Hill on 21 Jump Street, and now we have Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell hijacking the Sherlock Holmes franchise.

The Talladega Nights duo will team up with Tropic Thunder writer Etan Cohen for a new version of the master detective, with the Borat star donning the pipe and Ferrell as his sidekick Dr. Watson. The project is produced by (who else?) Judd Apatow.

Being a big Holmes fan, I'm not too hot on the idea. I'd much rather see a revived interest in the character the traditional way. But the other Sherlock Holmes project—the one spearheaded by Guy Ritchie and rumored to have Robert Downey Jr. in the lead—doesn't sound like it'd be any better (but that's just my overall ambivalence towards Guy Ritchie's work talking).

That's the good thing about public domain characters, though. There's no reason that two or three projects about Holmes can't exist at the same time. If these goofballs want to do a send-up of Holmes, then why not? As long as it's funny. On top of that, one must admit that Sacha Baron Cohen is a pretty good choice to portray Holmes with all of his eccentricities.

Extra Trivia: The idea of a comedy version of ol' Sherlock isn't new, of course. Years ago, Hugh Laurie tried to nab the role with his stage/comedy partner Stephen Fry as Dr. Watson, but never succeeded. Eventually he went on to play Dr. House on TV, a character heavily based on Sherlock Holmes' characterization.