Deadline is reporting that Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling (La La Land, Half Nelson, Drive) and MCU star Chris Evans (Avengers: Endgame, Knives Out, Defending Jacob) are set to star in The Gray Man, an espionage thriller set at Netflix and directed by AGBO’s Joe and Anthony Russo (Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: Civil War).
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The movie is based on the 2009 Mark Greaney novel that introduced the Gray Man, a freelance assassin and former CIA operative named Court Gentry. The action thriller adaptation is described as a deadly duel between killers as Gentry (Gosling) is hunted across the globe by Lloyd Hansen (Evans), a former cohort of Gentry’s at the CIA.
“The movie is a real mano a mano between those two great actors, who represent two different versions of the CIA, in what it can be, and what it can do,” Anthony Russo told the outlet. “For those who were fans of Captain America: Winter Soldier, this is us moving into that territory in more of a real-world setting. That’s what this movie really means for us.”
The project was reportedly developed years ago at New Regency as a Brad Pitt/James Gray vehicle, but stalled with the Russo Brothers quietly developing the project for years.
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“The intention is for it to be competitive with any theatrical and the ability to do [it] with Gosling and Evans is a dream for us. The idea is to create a franchise and build out a whole universe, with Ryan at the center of it. We have all committed to the first movie and that’s got to be great to get us to the second movie. These are master assassins and Gosling’s characters gets burned by the CIA and Evans’ character has to hunt him down. We have a great working relationship with Netflix, and we go back almost 20 years with Scott Stuber. We formed AGBO to be an agnostic storytelling company, where we figure out the best platform. We think Netflix is the perfect place for this film,” said Joe Russo regarding the film’s scale.
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The script was written by Joe Russo with “a polish” by AGBO’s Co-Presidents of Story and MCU writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The intention for the project is to create a new franchise on a “James Bond-level” with a budget of upwards $200 million, and Netflix has now set its most financially ambitious feature film thus far with The Gray Man. The film will be produced by AGBO’s the Russo Brothers and Mike Larocca along with Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum for Roth Kirschenbaum. They are hoping to begin production in January in Los Angeles as international locations are being finalized.
(Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images & Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
