The newest trailer for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows made it look like the action comedy sequel will be more of the same, and for once that's actually a good thing. Guy Ritchie's jangly, funny, only mildly bombastic 2009 movie was a pleasant surprise that holiday season, and with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law back to squabble with each other and run around Victorian England, they don't really need to change the formula too much to replicate the success. And apparently at Warner Bros., they're already convinced they have.

Deadline reports that the studio has already hired a screenwriter, Drew Pearce, to start working on Sherlock Holmes 3, just short of two months before the second film is set to hit theaters on December 16. If you recognize Pearce's name, it's not from anything he's written but what he'll have in the future-- he's the writer working with Shane Black and Robert Downey Jr. on the upcoming Iron Man 3. Downey Jr. is one of those actors who's powerful enough to bring in his own writers, so it seems clear that he likes what he's seeing on the next Iron Man installment and has brought Pearce over for yet another lucrative gig.

Different sets of writers have taken care of the first and second Sherlock Holmes movies, so it's not like this is a writer-centric franchise changing directions. It's good news for two franchises, actually-- Sherlock Holmes 2 is apparently good enough that they're expecting interest in a sequel, and Iron Man 3 is good enough that Robert Downey Jr. wants to keep that writer in the fold.