While his wife Madonna continues to dominate the tabloid covers, Guy Ritchie is keeping busy preparing for his Sherlock showdown. As we told you last week, Ritchie’s reboot of Sherlock Holmes is getting some competition from a rival production that will star Sacha Baron Cohen as the great detective and Will Ferrell as the elementary Watson. Now Ritchie has landed his Sherlock: Robert Downey, Jr. As Variety reports, “Downey emerged as an action star with Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes also will take advantage of his physical skills as the character displays brawn as well as brains. The basis for the film is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic tales, but also the comicbook Sherlock Holmes.” The “comicbook” Variety refers to is an upcoming take by Lionel Wigram, not the classic DC version pictured here. Sorry, nerds.

Speaking of comics (and nerds): fans of the Elfquest series by Wendy and Richard Pini, commence sharpening your knives. Or swords. Or whatever it is elves carry. Dodgeball writer/director Rawson Thurber will bring your beloved Wolfriders to the big screen for Warner Bros., per the Hollywood Reporter. “The series -- which at certain points in its history was published by both Marvel and DC Comics -- attracted a more mature audience as it went along, with scenes of battles and sexuality that were intense for that time. Hollywood has long tried to adapt the series, and several attempts at an animated series or feature have been made over the years.” Hey, what could go wrong?

Who says print is dead? It’s not only comic books that are coming to the screen in droves. Remember the New York Times article 'Mystery on Fifth Avenue' that was recently optioned by J.J. Abrams? Well, according to Variety, “Miramax Films has closed a deal to develop a movie from ‘This Strange Thing Called Prom,’ a Brooke Hauser article published in the June 22 edition of the New York Times. The article follows the prom adventures of high school seniors who came to Brooklyn from locales like Senegal, Venezuela, Tibet, Haiti, Poland and Gabon (one was a nomadic yak herder until age 12).” You may laugh, but don’t you think yak herding skills would have come in handy at your prom?

Related:
No Shit, Sherlock: Guy Ritchie Reimagines Holmes
The Summer of Downey