According to Columbia Pictures presidents Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, the studio will revive Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic characters Sherlock Holmes and Watson for a new comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the consummate sleuth and Will Ferrell as his well-intentioned sidekick. Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder) will write the screenplay and none other than current comedy “It”-kid Judd Apatow (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) will produce, alongside frequent Ferrell collaborator Jimmy Miller (Semi-Pro).

Cohen was seen most recently on the big screen alongside Johnny Depp in 2007’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Ferrell’s newest film, Step Brothers, co-starring John C. Reilly, will debut later this month. The two previously collaborated previously on Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, also produced by Miller.

Holmes and Watson appeared in four novels and over fifty short stories written by Doyle between 1878 and 1914, but there’s no word yet on a prospective plot for the new project.

Holmes, famed for his powers of logic and observation, is apparently a hot commodity lately, as rumors surfaced in June that Robert Downey, Jr. was also mulling a film adaptation of the character, this one directed by Guy Ritchie and based on a grittier comicbook version of the hero.