Fictional super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes will be turned into a "bad-ass" martial arts expert in Guy Ritchie's hard-hitting new film.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary crimefighter was famous for his pipe-puffing, laid-back approach to solving mysteries in the series of novels.
But Ritchie's forthcoming flick is rumored to make the character - played by Robert Downey Jr. - a lot more hands-on.
The actor tells British newspaper The Sun, "I've got to spend some time with Guy and I love his take on it. We're both martial arts enthusiasts and in the original stories of Sherlock Holmes, he's kind of a bad-ass and a bare-knuckle boxer and studies the rare, fictional martial art of baritsu.
"If you look baritsu up, they can't even really tell you what it is, so it gives us a lot of leeway."
And the Chaplin star insists the Holmes mysteries are still relevant to today's audiences, adding: "It's a period piece where you don't modernize it, you just realise how modern it was."
(The following is the original story as we printed it, but Guy Ritchie has since come forth and let us know he hasn't yet cast his Watson and that he does not have Crowe lined up.)
Russell Crowe is set to play Sherlock Holmes' sidekick Dr Watson in Guy Ritchie's new film.
The Gladiator star is lined up to star opposite Robert Downey Jr as the legendary fictional sleuth's confidante and storyteller in the forthcoming flick.
A source tells British newspaper The Sun, "Russell wants the part, Guy wants Russell. All they've got left to do is dot the i's and cross the t's."
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