Heading out from some impressive pandemic subscriber numbers, Netflix has committed to a very ambitious film project. The company has convinced Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans to star in what will be the streaming service's most expensive movie yet. Joe & Anthony Russo are on board to helm the movie, making this their first directorial project since Avengers: Endgame. Netflix hopes that this new film, titled The Gray Man, will launch a franchise to rival the likes of James Bond. In order to make that happen, they have already committed a budget upward of $200 million to achieve the scale and quality that such a project requires.
The Gray Man will be based on the novel of the same name by Mark Greaney. It was the first book of his to introduce The Gray Man himself, Court Gentry, as a freelance assassin and former CIA operative. There are already ten books in the series, many of them named things like Relentless, and On Target. In the original book, The Gray Man is tasked with rescuing his handler, Sir Donald Fitzroy, from various groups that want him dead, all in order to secure a billion dollar oil deal.
That said, it doesn't seem as though the Netflix project will be following that plot too closely. Instead, the movie has been promoted as Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans hunting each other down in a one-on-one spy thriller, with Gosling playing Court Gentry. The actor is expected to continue in the role after the first film. There's a lot riding on the success of the project, which is likely why Netflix paid whatever they needed to in order to get seasoned directors and actors on board.
Joe and Anthony Russo cut their teeth in television, working on sitcoms including Arrested Development, Community, and Happy Endings before jumping into blockbuster filmmaking with their MCU debut, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Joe Russo told Deadline exactly what the ambitions are for the project: “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... We have a great working relationship with Netflix, and we go back almost 20 years with Scott Stuber. We think Netflix is the perfect place for this film.”
Hopefully, the film lives up to those lofty goals, and audiences are as excited about it as the Russo brothers are.
Source: Deadline