Having just announced that it added millions of subscribers because of stay-at-home orders, Netflix is clearly ready to splash a little cash. Well, a lot, actually, as the company is breaking the piggy bank to stump up $200 million for one movie. Why so? It has scored the services of Chris Evans, Ryan Gosling and Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo for espionage thriller The Gray Man.
It'll adapt Mark Greaney's 2009 novel, which has spawned several follow-ups focused on burned CIA agent-turned hired killer Court Gentry (Gosling). The idea here is a deadly duel between killers as Gentry is hunted across the globe by Lloyd Hansen (Evans), a former cohort at the CIA. "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 tells 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."
This shiny new team-up for Evans, his regular MCU directors and Gosling cracks the concept out of development hell. Once featuring a script by Adam Cozad, it was briefly in the hands of Brad Pitt and James Gray, before Charlize Theron considered taking on the lead role. Since they all dropped out, the Russos have been quietly working on it, Joe cranking out a script draft that was then sent to their creative partners Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely for a writing polish.
Given the current pandemic and the Russos' busy schedules, we may have to wait some time for this to actually head before the cameras, but all involved are hoping it can spark a continuing franchise, much the way that the Russo-produced Extraction appears headed for sequel territory.