Some disappointing news this week for anyone who was wondering what is happening with Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen’s previously announced Sherlock Holmes parody that was supposed to be competing with Guy Ritchie’s action-oriented re-imagining of the detective. In a recent interview with HitFix, Ferrell hinted that the movie was unofficially on hold, and that they would be adopting a “wait and see” approach for the time being.

“Well, that one’s probably going to be a hit franchise and whether that is something you want to go up against… Would it just inform the audience to allow for us to do a comedy version or would it feel like we’re just trying to copy them, even though I think we wrote our script before they did?”

I can see the complication there, especially since audiences might perceive it as just another Scary Movie style spoof. Still, the thought of Sacha Baron Cohen as Holmes and Ferrell as Watson has far too much potential to waste. I really hope this makes its way to the big screen eventually.

The other unfortunate thing is that it seems an Anchorman sequel is not likely to be happening as soon as some people might think. Ferrell says that it may be too difficult to bring the same cast together again, but they haven’t given up hope yet. It could be “the craziest sequel you’ve ever seen, just live-by-the-sword-die-by-the-sword kinda feel and see what happens”. What do you think, are both of these projects better off dead, or do you hope the stars align to make them a reality?