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Nerdpocalypse: Ian McKellen Is Playing Sherlock Holmes

This is just like magic!

Sir Ian McKellen is yet again in ur movies, playing ur nerd icons.

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McKellen is set to play a retired Sherlock Holmes in A Slight Trick of the Mind, the film adaptation of Mitch Cullin‘s book of the same name. Reads the novel’s official description:

“It is 1947, and the long-retired Sherlock Holmes, now 93, lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse with his housekeeper and her young son. He tends to his bees, writes in his journal, and grapples with the diminishing powers of his mind. But in the twilight of his life, as people continue to look to him for answers, Holmes revisits a case that may provide him with answers of his own to questions he didn’t even know he was asking–about life, about love, and about the limits of the mind’s ability to know. A novel of exceptional grace and literary sensitivity, A Slight Trick of the Mind is a brilliant imagining of our greatest fictional detective and a stunning inquiry into the mysteries of human connection.”

If that reminds you of previous McKellen movie Gods and Monsters, in which the actor played legendary horror director James Whale in the last days of his life—well, it’s not a surprise. Slight will be helmed by Gods and Monsters director Bill Condon, who also directed upcoming Wikileaks movie The Fifth Estate (starring Benedict Cumberbatch—one degree of Sherlock!) and, er, the last two Twilight movies. But I’m prepared to forgive him that, because the idea of him reteaming with McKellen for what’s basically a filmed version of Sherlock Holmes fanfic is just too cool.

Plus, Gods and Monsters is excellent. It’s proof that Brendan Fraser can be a really good actor. Who’s up for a The Mummy rewatch?

(via: Deadline)

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