And here we go, folks, the iron clad reason why Robert Downey Jr. got out of Cowboys and Aliens–the sequel to Sherlock Holmes will start filming this June.

It wasn’t exactly a bad guess to suggest that Robert Downey Jr. was pretty badly overextended.  The guy’s been in several major titles already, and adding one more to the list struck me as going a bit far.

So it’s not surprising that he threw over a franchise in the making for the TWO franchises he’s now a part of, Iron Man, and now Sherlock Holmes.

Admittedly, no one over at Warner has actually greenlit Sherlock Holmes 2–so how do we know they’ll start shooting?  The three hundred million Sherlock Holmes has grossed so far with no imminent end in sight has something to say about that, and add on to that a nearly finished script and a returning cast, and that suggests June for a good start date.