Hmmmm... who is that man lurking behind Sherlock's head, and why do I feel such a deep kinship with him?

Credit: Warner Bros.

Oh, my goodness… is that our first look at Moriarty?

It's going to be a week of big trailer debuts, evidently.  There will allegedly be a teaser for the artist formerly known as "John Carter Of Mars" at some point this week, and I'm curious to see if Disney kicks off their trailer campaign with more confidence than the confusing poster campaign.  There's also a new "Tintin" trailer landing this week, and I'm dying to get a better look at the world and the characters.

Obviously, these new trailers are coming out this week because they're all going to be attached to the front of "Harry Potter And The Box-Office Bonanza" this weekend, and I think one of the trailers you can absolutely count on seeing is the first one for "Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows," the sequel to Guy Ritchie's interpretation of the classic characters, and I'm really curious to see how Ritchie handles this one considering that in the time since he released his first film, the BBC series "Sherlock" premiered to rave reviews and has, for many people, become the definitive modern take on Arthur Conan Doyle's greatest creation.

One of the ways he's upping the stakes this time is by introducing the one and only Professor Moriarty to the series, and Jared Harris is onboard to play the greatest adversary that Holmes ever faced.  In addition, they've brought in Noomi Rapace, the original Lisbeth Salander, as the female lead this time, and this will be one of the films where Hollywood tests to see if audiences like her, or if they just liked the character.  It's tough being an actor from another country who makes a big splash because the automatic assumption is that they have to make the jump to American films to "really" make it.  In her case, she managed to book gigs in fairly high profile films right away, including this and the Ridley Scott not-a-prequel "Prometheus," and these will be the test runs to determine what happens next for her.

The posters, which made their debut at Yahoo! Movies, break up the cast so that Holmes and Moriarty end up on one poster and Watson shares a poster with whoever Rapace is playing.  It's obvious they're using the same title treatment and general sense of style that they used to sell the first one, and why not?  It was a major success, and I would imagine they're going to keep this one fairly close in terms of visual style.

We'll make sure to post all the other new trailers and posters that arrive this week as we count down to the boy wizard's final adventure.

"Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows" arrives in theaters December 16, 2011.