Stars I Hate

And I don't particularly find their choice of JLM odd at all. He has a previous relationship with CBS, is coming off a canceled series where he was lead, and has been working in tv for years now.

Not to mention 90% or more of the audience for Elementary will have no idea that there is any connection whatsoever between the two. Hell it wouldn't even shock me if some of the people behind the show didn't know. Hollywood execs are so famously blind and deaf about theater, that a UK production might not penetrate their brains.

Given that Sherlock is a 3-a-season, 90-minute show, how is ANYONE surprised that "Hollywood" passed on it in favour of doing one with the standard American a 13/22 ep 1-hour formula? Seriously. I don't understand all of the whinging about it. Frankly "recreating" is for US audiences with the same cast or whatever in a new format would have been weird.

And Martin Freeman is the best thing about "Sherlock" so BC can stuff it. And I like Lucy Liu and I'm totally going to watch Elementary.

Ugh, he may well have reservations about 'Elementary', which is entirely his own prerogative, but, as the original poster at ONTD said, the second part of that quote basically translates to "Sure it’s okay if you want to do it, Jonny. I mean, I wouldn’t do it because I’m not a total sellout hack with a gold-digging wife who needs news shoes or whatever, but, really, go ahead. I don’t know why they’d want to do it, and why they cast you of all people, but, no, definitely, best of luck. Cheers".

What an insufferable twit.

ariadne wrote:Ugh, he may well have reservations about 'Elementary', which is entirely his own prerogative, but, as the original poster at ONTD said, the second part of that quote basically translates to "Sure it’s okay if you want to do it, Jonny. I mean, I wouldn’t do it because I’m not a total sellout hack with a gold-digging wife who needs news shoes or whatever, but, really, go ahead. I don’t know why they’d want to do it, and why they cast you of all people, but, no, definitely, best of luck. Cheers".

What an insufferable twit.

And like god forbid someone else play Shelock Holmes. How dare he when Downey Jr just did two movies, omg. Oh nevermind, it's like modern so tots different and he owns the role or whatever. I like how he's all "I'm not threatened" but mentions that he read the script, blah blah.

He could take a lesson from Martin Freeman, in fact, because apparently he managed to survive a million or so "Office" redos without getting all sniffy about people playing very Tim-like characters.

Or he's, you know, not being serious and being tongue-in-cheek about the whole thing.

Dude, a cartoon mouse played the role before you did.

laddical wrote:Or he's, you know, not being serious and being tongue-in-cheek about the whole thing.

Possibly, but after the 'it's hard being posh' rant I have a tendency to give him the side eye.

Yeah, I am going with condescending asshat.

The "it's hard being posh" stuff is pretty awful, but I do think it must have been tricky for him because both of his parents are well known actors. I'm sure sometimes he wonders if when he first started out if he got work just because of who he was related to. I don't think he should have made it sound like growing up wealthy is a terrible burden, but I can understand his frustration about being essentially typecast as "creepy posh guy". Since seeing him in Sherlock I've gone back and seen a lot of the films/shows he was in, and in almost all of them that's the type of role he had. I don't think it's all that odd he would attribute that to the fact he has a posh background, and feel like he's capable of playing more complex characters than that.

I also think one of the reasons why Moffat didn't get want to develop a Sherlock clone for the US was because he didn't want to do 1 hour episodes and be locked into producing 20-24 episodes a season. He likes the longer format because they can make a product more like a feature film, rather than a TV show. And while I do plan to at least check out Elementary (because I am Sherlock Holmes bitch), I do think it was shitty for ABC to make such a similar show. I don't blame the people involved with Sherlock to get shirty about it.

Moffat already has experience reworking one of his shows for US TV and it was a miserable failure. No one remembers the US version of Coupling and no one wants to.

That said, I see no problem with CBS doing their own update to Sherlock Holmes. Moffat's version was hardly the first to bring Sherlock to modern times. House is Sherlock as a doctor. I think there's room for both versions especially since one is going to be a one hour 22 episode series and the other is more like three TV movies. Personally, I'm rooting for Elementary because the naysayers will be insufferable if it gets cancelled early.

Cumberbatch puts out a clarification in the Hollywood Reporter

Regardless of what he said or didn't say, he just needs to learn that reporters aren't his friends. That he can't go on rambling about stuff because they will quote him. Perhaps out of context and in the most negative way possible. If he wants to play in the big league he needs to either learn that or deal with the fact that he will cause a "controversy" about once a week.

Regardless of what he said or didn't say, he just needs to learn that reporters aren't his friends. That he can't go on rambling about stuff because they will quote him.

Yes. I think the comparison to Gwyneth is really apt, as he basically seems like a guy who has never really had to censor himself when talking to people, so he just doesn't give a lot of thought to whether he'll be offensive.

The thing is, I don't REALLY see a problem with him being ambivalent about the situation, or even expressing to his friend privately that it's a bit weird. For all that Holmes adaptations are a dime a dozen, Sherlock is Elementary's closest cousin at present, and I think comparisons ARE inevitable. It must be pretty weird to think your friend is going to be in a version of something that you've just done, that may very well overshadow your own hard work.

But saying it all to a reporter, and implying that your friend is a sellout with a greedy wife, is shitty. Reporters are not your friends, and they don't need to know all your feelings no matter how important they are to you.

He really does need someone to shove a sock in his mouth at times.

And reporters aren't your friend when it comes to being on duty. Or to quote my old boss "If you're stupid enough to say it, I'm stupid enough to print it."

I notice that the Hollywood Reporter is the one who labels it a clarification, while BC calls it a misquote, and says "I never said that Johnny took the job for the paycheck nor did I ask him not to do it." So I don't know whether it was him being naive and nattering on, or a reporter making shit up. I'm sure both are common in Hollywood. But BC still isn't off the hook for the Poor Poshiful Me act.

laddical wrote:Or he's, you know, not being serious and being tongue-in-cheek about the whole thing.

I don't know much about him beyond seeing him in Sherlock so sure, maybe. He should be really careful in the future, then, because tongue-in-cheek doesn't translate well in print. Anyway, whatever he does, I'll never like his Holmes as much as I loved Jeremy Brett's.

My larger annoyance is at the general reaction to Elementary. It's not the first time a US station has broadly borrowed from something that's popular in another country, and in this case, I think it's clear why a format more similar to the "original" wouldn't have worked. As Big Chicken points out, the difference in format somewhat removes them from being in competition. Also, despite the modern setting, it's not as if there aren't already multiple adaptations of Holmes. I just find it surprising that given that, people are so defensive about that adaptation. If TV can support 6-billion hospital dramas, there's certainly room for two Shelock Holmes'.

And because I cannot repeat it enough, Holmes doesn't belong to Steven Moffat. The idea of putting Homes in a modern setting doesn't even belong to him. Nobody needs to ask his permission for anything, and though Johnny Lee Miller sounds like a nice guy for asking his friend if he minded, it's not required.

At this point I'm planning to watch Elementary out of sheer spite.

I have nothing substantive to add to this except to say that I wish I could find a reason to drop the phrase "Poor Poshiful Me act" into every conversation. It's highly unlikely that I will be able to do so, but I promise to give you full credit if I do, mandalaya.

bosoxgirl said:

I have nothing substantive to add to this except to say that I wish I could find a reason to drop the phrase "Poor Poshiful Me act" into every conversation. It's highly unlikely that I will be able to do so, but I promise to give you full credit if I do, mandalaya.

Ha, glad you like it. Please do let me know if the occasion arises, because it's hard to imagine many conversations in which it could be applied!

Ugh. I wish people would stop buying his music and paying attention to him in general so that he would just fade away into obscurity.

What a scumbag. Please go away and die, Chris Brown.

Grainne Mhaol wrote:What a scumbag. Please go away and die, Chris Brown.

Yes, and then we can rename this thread "The Chris Brown Memorial Thread."

Miss Moneypenny wrote:

Grainne Mhaol wrote:What a scumbag. Please go away and die, Chris Brown.

Yes, and then we can rename this thread "The Chris Brown Memorial Thread."

Oh I am SO tempted to really do that. Power corrupts, guys. It really does.

Oh, the tattoo isn't supposed to be Rihanna. It's just a random beat-up woman. Because that's better.

In addition to being a vile piece of scum, he has to be one of the biggest morons I have ever heard of. He can't even pretend he's sorry.

And what is with that Sisquo-esque dye job? Shudder.