Columbia Pictures has announced the cast and crew for their upcoming comedic take on the time-less Sherlock Holmes character.

In the role of Sherlock Holmes is none other than Borat‘s Sacha Baron Cohen and following him around as dear, dear Watson will be Will Ferrell. The duo starred together in the 2006 comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

The screenplay is being written by Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder, Idiocracy) and producing the movie is Jimmy Miller and this guy named Judd Apatow.

It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who created the character and while it’s obvious that this is the basis of the movie, it seems they will use his works as a starting point for this particular film, meaning… well, who knows what we’ll get!

When I first received the press release, I seriously thought that this was in regard to the Guy Ritchie-directed version of Sherlock Holmes recently reported (see Guy Ritchie To Direct Sherlock Holmes) and much confusion and even some curiosity entered my brain. Finding out they were completely separate projects and that there just happens to be a Sherlock Holmes surge going on in Hollywood brought some sense back into my world.

I have to say, I love the sound of this so far and it will be interesting to see how they tackle it. My first wonder would probably be, will it be a period comedy (my vote!) or will they modernize it? I assume there will be quite the amusing cast built up around these two leads as well as a fitting director.

Columbia president Matt Tolmach — who made the announcement with co-president Doug Belgrad, had this to say:

I have to agree with the man.