To mark the birthday of his old Sherlock Holmes co-star and future MCU inhabitant Jude Law, Robert Downey Jr. took to Twitter with a special message for the man who once played the Watson to his Holmes.
The star of next year’s Avengers: Endgame sent his birthday wishes in the form of a GIF featuring himself and Law gliding across the ballroom floor, with the accompanying message reading:
“To my favorite dance partner… Happy birthday.”
To my favorite dance partner… Happy birthday. pic.twitter.com/OqvzMA16dp
— Robert Downey Jr (@RobertDowneyJr) December 29, 2018
There’s a curious amount of overlap between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the recent screen adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s works. As well as the main duo from 2009’s Sherlock Holmes and 2011’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows both having important roles in the superhero saga, their equivalent characters in the Sherlock TV show are also played by MCU regulars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. To complicate matters further, Rachel McAdams has even played the love interest of both Downey’s Sherlock in the 2009 film and Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange in the Marvel franchise.
It made for a slightly surreal moment then when Downey and Cumberbatch crossed paths earlier this year in Avengers: Infinity War, but directors Anthony and Joe Russo refrained from including a Sherlock joke for fear of the reference being “too obvious.”
As for when we’ll next see Downey and Law buddy up, the long-awaited Sherlock Holmes 3 is still on its way, with a release date set for December 25th, 2020, and with series regular Guy Ritchie expected to resume directing duties. In the meantime, you can catch Law in Captain Marvel, which hits theaters on March 8th, 2019, before April 26th sees the release of what may well be Downey’s MCU swan song, Avengers: Endgame.