Modcult

At least Downey is signed for at least two more films, the aforementioned “Iron Man 2” and the starring role in British director Guy Ritchie’s take on Sherlock Holmes. “It’s definitely going to be Guy Ritchie’s take and it’s going to be done in classical 1891 surroundings but not going to be particularly stylised.” With a contemporary tone, he adds. “I think what’s contemporary about it is that you go back to the real truth of Sherlock Holmes - is that he’s a lot more broad and less stoic than I remember seeing him depicted. He’s a bare knuckle boxer, a martial artist and a complete weirdo which is why I said I’d love to do this.”

Cyberpunk author William Gibson has a cameo appearance as himself. When the author of Neuromancer is introduced as the man who invented the term “Cyberspace”, he remarks, “and they’ve never let me forget it.”

They can print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory, like the pain of an amputated leg no longer there.