Hollywood’s most beloved acts, Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans are set to star opposite each other in a developing Netflix spy thriller ‘The Gray Man’.
Revealed as the most expensive budget film ($200 million) yet-to-be commissioned by the streaming service, the story follows Gosling as an ex-CIA operative-turned-killer for hire duel Court Gentry pursued by his former colleague Evans. The Russo brothers, Joe and Anthony are attached to direct, while the former pens the script with a last look from Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
The film is based on Mark Greaney’s series of books of the same name and set to create an entire cinematic franchise on Netflix. “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,” commented Joe Russo.
A release date is currently unknown but production is said to begin early next year. Joe and Anthony will produce via their company AGBO alongside Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum for Roth Kirschenbaum.
The Russo brothers are best known in Hollywood for their blockbuster titles ‘Captain America’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’. They are also in work with Disney creating a live-action version of ‘Hercules’. Evans is coming onboard to work with them for the fifth time after starring in all four Marvel Studio films ‘Avengers’. Gosling however will be working with them for the first time in his career.
“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 Deadline. “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.”
