Sherlock Holmes Movie

Moriarty is back. After a too-brief cameo in 2009's hit film Sherlock Holmes, the detective's most notorious nemesis becomes the focus of the sequel, scheduled for release in Australia in January.

Even with Mark Strong taking the bad-guy role as the serial killer Lord Blackwood - and an impressive $US209 million haul - director Guy Ritchie felt something was missing the first time. While he's loath to do sequels, he was quick to return for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

''I can't help myself,'' Ritchie says. ''They wanted this to be a franchise, which, in my mind, needs at least two movies. But I really liked working with the team on the first movie, so this was an easy choice.

Advertisement: Story continues below So was the primary villain for A Game of Shadows. The cast will reunite Robert Downey jnr as Holmes and Jude Law as Dr Watson, while Jared Harris will feature as the inscrutable James Moriarty.

The movie, which also sees the return of Rachel McAdams, follows Holmes as he and Watson trace Moriarty's murderous trail with the help of Holmes's older brother, Mycroft (Stephen Fry), and a gypsy, Sim (Noomi Rapace). The film shares elements from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1893 short story The Final Problem, which first appeared in Strand Magazine and introduced Moriarty.

Ritchie, the director of Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, says he was taken aback by the success of the first film and isn't sure how to repeat it.

''Moriarty is one of the most famous villains of all time,'' he says. ''But we didn't want to make him a conventional character. The challenge was to still make him modern, believable.

Conventional, Harris isn't. Recently known as the nerdy British pencil-pusher from Mad Men, Harris ''brings a depth - a realism - that everyone was really excited about'', Ritchie says.

Holmes's enduring appeal, on the other hand, remains something of a puzzle to Ritchie. ''I don't know why he's been so popular all these years,'' he says. ''Maybe it's because he was such a pioneer … The famous investigator with flaws in his character. Yet he's still this perennial winner. How could you not like that?