Robert Downey Jr. takes on Perry Mason

Has Robert Downey Jr. got the detecting bug?

First he pulls off an impressive turn as Sherlock Holmes (“upending the character’s long-standing stuffiness with contemporary verve while nailing the eccentric bent of Arthur Conan Doyle’s great British detective”). Now he fancies his chances as Perry Mason!

According to a report in Variety , a Perry Mason film would take place in the 1930s and be set in the “rough and tumble world” of early Los Angeles.

Downey Jr. and executive producer David Gambino came up with the film's plot between them but will hire a writer to script it.

The fictional defence attorney first appeared in a 1933 novel by Erle Stanley Gardner but has since gone on to feature in radio plays, films and a TV series.

Gardner produced 82 Perry Mason novels overall, as well as other short stories. Did someone say sequels?