THE film director Guy Ritchie, husband of Madonna, is to try to revive his career by giving Sherlock Holmes a gritty, gangland-style makeover.

Ritchie is best known for his violent 1998 hit Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels but has had little success since.

The Hollywood studio Warner Bros is backing his attempt to repackage Holmes from his tweedy, cerebral image into a sword-wielding fist-fighter with a short fuse.

In Los Angeles last week, an executive at Warner said it was looking for a “grungy” Holmes. “This is Sherlock Holmes as a street-fighting man, ready to take on man, monsters, whatever the world can throw at him.”

The studio hopes to release the film, to be called Sherlock Holmes, in 2010. The story was conceived as a comic book by Lionel Wigram, a Briton based in Los Angeles who worked on the Harry Potter films. The comic will be published when the film is released.

The detective has been absent from the screen since Rupert Everett revived him as an opium-smoking detective on television four years ago, a performance that for many did not match earlier portrayals by Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett.

Ritchie, 39, needs a hit: his efforts since Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – such as Swept Away, starring Madonna, and Revolver – have failed to hit the mark.

Ritchie is said to favour fresh faces for the film rather than actors who have previously starred in his films, such as Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones.

The writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle give grounds for showing Holmes as an action man. David Stuart Davies, the author of Starring Sherlock Holmes, said: “Leaping, fighting and being a great swordsman – that is all in the original stories.”

Ritchie’s stepmother Shireen said: “We have not had a long conversation with Guy about it . . . but I’m sure he’ll do an excellent job.”

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