Spy vs. Spy was a speechless comic-strip created by Antonio Prohías which first appeared in Mad Magazine in January 1961. The comic centered around two nearly identical spies, one wearing white and one wearing black, who are constantly at war with one another. Spy vs. Spy went on to be featured in animated TV shows, video-games, and commercials, and Hollywood has been attempting to transform the strip into a live-action feature-film for quite some time.
Collider has the news that the SPY VS. SPY feature-film has taken another step forward as Rawson Marshall Thurber, best known for DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY, WE'RE THE MILLERS, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, and SKYSCRAPER, is in talks to helm the picture. The project was initially developed as a directing vehicle for Ron Howard close to a decade ago, but he'll remain onboard as a producer alongside Brian Grazer and David Koepp. At the time, the script for SPY VS. SPY was set to be written by John Kamps, who would have been overseen by Koepp, but as Thurber has had a hand in penning just about every project he takes on, Collider's Jeff Sneider assumes that he'll be taking a crack at the script for SPY VS. SPY as well. When it was first announced, it was said that the SPY VS. SPY film would be "a physical and highly visual action comedy," which certainly sounds like something in Thurber's wheelhouse.
Rawson Marshall Thurber was in the midst of production on RED NOTICE, an action/comedy/thriller starring Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds, but the spread of COVID-19 put a stop to that. RED NOTICE takes place in the world of international crime and finds INTERPOL issuing a Red Notice, a global alert to hunt down and capture the world's most wanted art thief. Once the Hollywood shutdown is lifted, Thurber will resume work on RED NOTICE.