Although this one should definitiely be filed in the rumours drawer for now, Superherohype is reporting that director Guy Ritchie is hoping to get none other than Daniel Day-Lewis to play the villainous Moriarty in the upcoming Sherlock Holmes sequel.
However there are a couple of problems with this, firstly that there's no confirmation that this is what Ritchie wants, and even if he does, can anyone imagine Day-Lewis agreeing? He's not exactly known for making commercial mainstream hits, and seems to only make films if he feels it's a role he simply can't turn down (because he's not a big fan of the actual filmmaking process), and it's difficult to imagine him feeling that way about the Holmes villain.
With the script yet to be seen by many in Hollywood, it's not even known how much of a role Moriarty plays in the film. While it's assumed he'll be more active than the shadowy figure of the first film, it's not known if he'll be the main villain or still the puppet master behind the scene.
Previously it was rumoured Brad Pitt might be up for the role, and indeed he had some talks with the producers, however these seem to have come to nothing, probably because the accelerated production schedule on the sequel - it starts shooting this summer - means he can't fit it in. That means that while it's difficult to imagine Day-Lewis will take the role of Moriarty, Ritchie needs to find someone fairly soon. Other names being bandied about include Sean Penn, Javier Bardem and Gary Oldman, but as yet, it's not even certain if any of them have even been approached.