Robert Downey Jr. may be busy getting ready to do battle with Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, but he is still committed to returning as Sherlock Holmes for a third go around. Sherlock Holmes 3 just took a massive step forward, because Warner Bros. and Robert Downey Jr.'s production company have just hired a writers' room to work on the script. The studio is clearly taking this very seriously, because they have brought in some big name writers to work on this anticipated sequel.

According to a report from Variety, Warner Bros. and Team Downey decided that bringing on just a writer or two for Sherlcok Holmes 3 wasn't good enough, so they hired five. The new writer's room for the movie will include Guardians of the Galaxy writer Nicole Perlman, Baywatch writer Justin Malen, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story writer Gary Whitta, Tomb Raider writer Geneva Dworet-Robertson and Snowden writer Kieran Fitzgerald.

The concept of a writers' room for major blockbuster movies is sort of a new idea, but studios like Paramount have utilized it for massive properties like Transformers recently. It is very interesting that Warner Bros. and Team Downey felt the need to bring on so many big names for Sherlock Holmes 3, unless they are planning on breaking stories for several movies and possibly extending the franchise beyond a third installment. At the moment there is no mention of that. The focus seems to be on getting Sherlock Holmes 3 right.

The original Sherlock Holmes came out in 2009 and brought in $524 million worldwide, making it a huge hit for the studio. The sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, did even better, bringing in $545 million, so it makes sense that the studio would want to continue on with the $1 billion franchise. Earlier this year we reported that Robert Downey Jr. is still committed to doing Sherlock Holmes 3 and stated that the movie could start filming as early as the end of this year, but that seems very unlikely now. Especially since he will be filming Avengers: Infinity War for quite some time. Here is what he had to say in an interview with ShortList.com

"We're talking about it right now. We can do some preliminary stuff. If we could shoot it on Skype, we could have the whole [movie] done in a week. When we're making those Sherlock movies it is off the hook. [So] we'll attempt to make one this year. It really is a big deal to go and do those movies. I'm tired all the time, but I'm so excited about it."

Robert Downey Jr. hasn't been shy about the fact that his busy Marvel schedule has kept Sherlock Holmes 3 from moving forward over the last handful of years, which has likely frustrated Warner Bros. Jude Law is expected to return as Watson in Sherlock Holmes 3 and Guy Ritchie is expected to return to direct, at least for the moment. Ritchie was recently hired to direct Disney's live action Aladdin, so that could keep him pretty busy for a while. There is still no release date set for the movie, but Warner Bros. wouldn't hire that many writers if they weren't very serious about getting Sherlock Holmes 3 made, so don't be surprised to hear an announcement sometime soon.