In news that seemed “too good to be true”, Guy Ritchie, who directed such action-comedies as Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, would be directing an adaptation of the DC character Lobo for Warner Bros. Since then, Ritchie’s stock has gone up in a huge way with his Sherlock Holmes bringing in over $350 worldwide since it’s Christmas Day release.

With that in mind, both Warner and super-producer Joel Silver have decided to fast-track a Holmes sequel, which would put Lobo on ice, possibly permanently. When the LA Times sat down with Silver, he didn’t seem too convinced either way.

“I don’t think he’s going to do it now,” Silver said of Ritchie directing “Lobo.” “The studio wants us and Guy to focus on making another ‘Sherlock Holmes.’ So I think we’re going to be doing that. But we’re seeing what happens with this.

Everybody is analyzing everything. It’s all kind of happening right now as we talk. ‘Sherlock’ is sitting at just about $400 million in worldwide gross and showing itself to be pretty effective and pretty strong. So we’re trying to see if we can do something quickly with another ‘Sherlock Holmes’ movie. We have some ideas and some good story points.”

It was also rumored that Brad Pitt, a Guy Ritchie favorite, would be stepping in on the Holmes sequel to play the evil Professor Moriarty, but Silver didn’t seem to think that the plan would move on past the “wouldn’t it be cool?” stage.

Downey Jr. also just recently picked up his second Golden Globe for his performance in Sherlock Holmes, which you can still catch in some theaters.

When I watch a movie like James McTeigue’s Ninja Assassin I think about what could have been. Its not that the film is terribly bad, it is just not terribly good. But oh how I wish it was. Nothing would make me happier than to see a resurgence of the ninja movie genre driven by a big budget studio film with all the money, time and craft that could be brought to it.

Instead, we’re given a movie which intercuts the Ninja story with Europol agents and their search for the ninjas. Every time the action cuts away from the story of the ninjas and went to the agents, I was bored. On top of that, the main female researcher is played by Naomi Harris, one of the most annoying and weak actresses in recent memory.

One surprise for me in this film is how much I actually liked Rain in the title role. Sure, his acting for a non-native English speaker isn’t particularly good, but he has a certain screen presence that works here. Seeing him in this film its easy to understand why he has such a huge following in Asia.

Do I wish he was an actual martial artist and could more realistically accomplish the fights himself without the aid of stunt doubles or CGI, of course. Also, the fact that he’s actually Korean and not Japanese and is playing the lead in a very deeply felt Japanese genre film may cause some, as director McTeigue put it after the screening I saw, “push back.” Maybe so, but that’s not really the problem here.

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We’ve been pretty excited for Warner Bros.’ newest action film, Ninja Assassin around the office, and we just came across a few clips that got us even more excited. The film hits theaters a week from Wednesday, but we thought it would be okay if we gave you on a sneak peak now.

The film, co-written by comics’ “Who’s Who” J. Michael Straczynski, is about a cult of ninja killers who raise a boy to become a superior ninja. Later, he learns that the ways of his clan need to be stopped. Straczynski has been the man behind such other fan favorites as Spider-Man and Silver Surfer in comics, and Babylon 5, Jeremiah, and even The Real Ghostbusters on TV.

In both 3D and Digital theaters, the film is said to be visually stunning. With James McTeigue (V For Vendetta) behind the wheel, you can believe that the film won’t be boring. We’ll be sure to have plenty more coverage of the film, including a review next week.

In the meantime, check out these new clips (totaling nearly 7 minutes!) from Ninja Assassin, in theaters November 25th.

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Megan Fox hadn’t finished taking photos at the end of the Warner Bros. presentation for Jonah Hex before Robert Downey Jr. leaped onstage past the starlet to the surprise and delight of the crowd gathered for the Sherlock Holmes panel. SciFiWire notes Downey acknowledged the applause of the crowd by bowing to the packed hall before screening a clip from the film..

The footage introduces Downey as Holmes, Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, Holmes’ female foil and sometime lover, Jude Law as Watson and Mark Strong as Lord Blackwood. One sequence features Holmes squaring off in a ring against a much larger man; before they battle, he imagines (in slow motion) what he should do to maximize the damage he can inflict, then does it in real time. Later, Holmes is bested by McAdams’ character, who seduces him, chains him to a bed and leaves him for a chambermaid to discover. The clip also featured a lot of big action, including a fight scene atop a drawbridge and a showdown by the docks.

Director Guy Ritchie wasn’t in attendance to promote the film, but producers Susan Downey (Robert’s wife) and Joel Silver and co-star McAdams took the stage with Downey to talk about the character. Susan Downey suggested that Sherlock Holmes “applies as much today as he did” in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, while Silver praised the interpretation of him, saying “Downey really is genius in this role. He made it come to life.”

McAdams pointed out that she had the freedom to develop her character, unencumbered by the legacy and mythology of the Holmes novels, mostly because Irene appears in only one book, for about 10 pages. She also said that Irene was uncharacteristic for Holmes’ era, explaining that “she kind of lives in the underworld. [Holmes and I] develop this kind of strange, unique love affair.”

At the end of the panel, Susan Downey revealed that although Mrs. Hudson makes an appearance in the film, none of the other Baker Street characters are in the film. Regardless, she insisted that the film has “a narrative unique to the movie.” Sherlock Holmes opens Christmas Day.