Robert Downey Jr. release year for his role in "Tropic Thunder". The first role Downey accepted after "Iron Man" was the title character in Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes". Warner Bros. released it on December 25, 2009. The film set several box office records in the United States for a Christmas Day release, beating the previous record holder, 2008's "Marley & Me", by nearly $10M, and finished second to "Avatar" in a record-setting Christmas weekend box office. "Sherlock Holmes" ended up being the 8th highest-grossing film of 2009. When Downey won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Robert Downey Jr. well. In July 2001, Downey pleaded no contest to the Palm Springs charges, avoiding jail time. Instead, he was sent into drug rehabilitation and received three years of probation, benefiting from the California Proposition 36, which had been passed the year before with the aim of helping nonviolent drug offenders overcome their addictions instead of sending them to jail. The book "Conversations with Woody Allen" reports that director Woody Allen wanted to cast Downey and Winona Ryder in his film "Melinda and Melinda" in 2005, but was unable to do so, because he could not get insurance on them, stating,