On Thursday, it was announced our beloved Sir Ian McKellen will star in Bill Condon’s adaption of Mitch Collin’s A Slight Trick of the Mind. This may be the most beautiful, genius piece of news we’ve heard all year.
Ian McKellen will play a long retired Holmes who lives with a housekeeper and her son in a small Sussex village. Holmes feels haunted by an unsolved case from 50 years prior, and without Watson by his side, he must construe these inner conflicts and torments alone. Holmes may at long last come to understand the profoundness of the human heart and emotion more acutely than ever in his life.
Sigh, talk about flawless casting.
News of any other actor taking on the role of Sherlock Holmes again would bother me to no end. We’ve got enough of them to make all of Sherlock’s fandoms attack one another in fan-gasm rages. But our dear Sir Ian McKellen will add nothing but love and unity to the Sherlock Holmes communities. Just look at what he posted on Facebook:
Yesterday morning, it was announced that I will be portraying Sherlock Holmes in a new film to be released in 2014. Later in the day, in the town of Coulterville, California I found “Sherlock’s” antique emporium. Case Closed.
- Could he be more precious?
So, yes, Ian McKellen is perfect, but what is there to think of our film-maker, Bill Condon? He has a unique and somewhat surprising career background. Ian McKellen worked with Bill Condon on 1998 film Gods and Monsters, for which Condon won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. He’s worked with many big-name actors, such as Liam Neeson, Jamie Foxx, Diane Keaton, and Eddie Murphy, and directs The Fifth Estate with Benedict Cumberbatch, due out October 18, 2013 (US).
Although, most know his name from The Twilight Saga, where he directed the final two film installments of the popular franchise. As alarming as this information might be to Sherlock Holmes fans, consider that walking away from Twilight must be very much like breaking chains of enslavement. Condon now strides the opposite direction of film making with A Slight Trick of the Mind and The Fifth Estate, and who can blame him? I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find Condon taking some of the spotlight at the Oscars for the next few years.
A Slight Trick of the Mind will begin filming in the UK April 2014, and is said to release later in the year.
And if you haven’t seen it yet, check out The Fifth Estate trailer:
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