Steven Soderbergh's The Man From U.N.C.L.E. might have recently lost George Clooney (if they ever actually had him), but it's looking as if his replacement may already have arrived. Variety are reporting that Warners have offered Bradley Cooper the role of the devastatingly suave Napoleon Solo.
Robert Vaughn played Solo in the light-hearted spy series that ran for 105 episodes between 1964 and 1968, opposite David McCallum as the intense Russian Illya Kuryakin. U.N.C.L.E. was an international intelligence agency: the United Network Command for Law Enforcement. Their chief antagonists were the agents of T.H.R.U.S.H.: the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity (although that acronym was never actually revealed in the series: it's a retcon from the spinoff novels). The series spawned a sister in The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., several cinema releases of expanded TV episodes, and a reunion TV movie in 1983.
Clooney had long been mooted for the film - one of Soderbergh's allegedly final projects - but his loss hasn't affected Warners' plans for a start-date of February next year. Soderbergh is planning a fun affair with a period 60s setting, and the writer is Scott Z Burns (Contagion, The Informant!). Cooper has yet to finally sign, but we're thinking some stylish spycraft might be an attractive change-up after the celestial battle shenanigans of Alex Proyas' Paradise Lost, where he's playing fallen angel Lucifer.
Burns enthused recently to Coming Soon that "U.N.C.L.E. was a really incredibly progressive, hopeful kind of show... I think we can do some really cool stuff, shooting those cars and that fashion and that aesthetic with today's cameras and technology..."
Soderbergh's** Contagion** is out now.