Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans are set to star in The Gray Man for Netflix, according to Deadline‘s Mike Fleming Jr.. The film further reunites Evans with directing duo, MCU favorites Anthony and Joe Russo, and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
The update comes following years of the IP’s languishing development, firstly at New Regency, and most recently at Sony under the stewardship of The Russo Brothers as of 2015 via The Tracking Board. At the time of that particular report, actress Charlize Theron was circling the project, and no word of it is mentioned in Fleming Jr.’s new report.
The film is based on the 2009 novel from Jove Books – the first of a four-novel set from author Mark Greaney – and centers on “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.” Joe Russo’s script sets the pace with revisals by Markus and McFeely, with the Russos’ directing.
The sibs are also producing the pic out of their AGBO banner, with Mike Larocca, and with Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum for Roth Kirschenbaum.
“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.”
Said Joe Russo on the film’s scale: “The intention is for it to be competitive with any theatrical and the ability to do with 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 Gray Man will be the Russos’ latest effort since scoring major success earlier this year with Sam Hargrave’s feature directing debut, Extraction, starring Chris Hemsworth.
Also in tow from the Avengers and Captain America directors are a sequel to Extraction with Hargrave attached to direct once more, indie heist drama Cherry starring Tom Holland, Natalie Erika’s Relic, and Matthew Michael Carnahan’s City Of A Million Soldiers.
Lead pic: Gage Skidmore