Netflix is set to tackle its most financially ambitious feature film to date. The streamer is spending upwards of $200 million on THE GRAY MAN, an espionage thriller starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans with Joe and Anthony Russo set to direct.
The goal here is to create a new franchise that is on a James Bond-level scale in its scope. The film 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 presents 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 Gray Man went on to become a bestselling book series and the hope is that Gosling will continue with the franchise in multiple installments. The project was developed years back at New Regency as a Brad Pitt/James Gray vehicle, but it stalled and The Russo Brothers have quietly been developing it for years. Anthony Russo had this to say about the project:
"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. 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."
Joe Russo continued talking about the project by saying "The intention is for it to be competitive with any theatrical and the ability to do 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.”
The Russo’s AGBO is producing, and the script was written by Joe Russo, with a polish by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who scripted the Russo-directed CAPTAIN AMERICA and AVENGERS films and who are Co-Presidents of Story at AGBO. The Russos and AGBO already had success with Netflix earlier this year as EXTRACTION has become Netflix's most successful original film to date.
This sounds like this is going to be a fun one and I love the combo of Gosling and Evans in something like this. Gosling doesn't strike me as a franchise guy but maybe he's all in for the right one. The team is eyeing a January start date in Los Angeles for the project with international locations being finalized.
Will YOU be watching THE GRAY MAN?