While Avatar has been happily helping itself to lots of money in the box office tills, another big Christmas release hasn't been performing too shabbily either. Guy Ritchie's reworking of Sherlock Holmes, with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in the lead roles, has taken nearly $300m worldwide, with $166m of that notched up in the States thus far. That's beyond the level that Warner Bros was likely looking for, and thus the inevitable sequel - which the end of the first film teased to death - is set to be rolled into production sooner rather than later.

This is what's had a knock-on for Robert Downey Jr's schedule, forcing him to pull out of director Jon Favreau's next project, Cowboys & Aliens. Cowboys & Aliens, it should be noted, sounds great, mixing together a western with science fiction (that alone makes us want to dig out our Firefly box set), but Downey Jr has had to pull out. And the thinking is that the planned summer shoot for Cowboys & Aliens would clash with production on the second Sherlock Holmes movie.

A script for Sherlock Holmes 2 was being worked on even before the first film was released, and it's widely been speculated that Brad Pitt will be stepping in to play Moriarty. It looks as though Warner Bros will get the film rolling this year, which hints strongly at a Christmas 2011 release slot.

And boy, isn't Christmas 2011 suddenly getting interesting? As if the summer of 2011 wasn't packed enough, the end of the year already looks as if it'll have Sherlock 2, The Hobbit Part I and James Bond 23 going head to head. That said, if last December proved anything, it's this: three films can all make shitloads of money at the same time.

One last thing: if Sherlock 2 does go ahead this year, will Guy Ritchie be back to direct? We wouldn't be betting on that one in a hurry...