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SYFY WIRE The Gray Man

Netflix's most expensive movie ever will be a $200M James Bond-level thriller from the Russo Bros.

By Jacob Oller
Joe and Anthony Russo

The directing duo behind the highest-grossing film of all time are set to break another movie record for Netflix. This time, brothers and Avengers: Endgame filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo (who also helmed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War for Marvel) are headed to Netflix for the streaming service's biggest-budgeted movie yet — and it looks to be a spy film that would have 007 raising his shaken-not-stirred glass.

According to Deadline, Netflix is putting a massive, $200M+ budget behind an adaptation of The Gray Man starring Ryan Gosling and Captain America himself, Chris Evans. The plan is to make a new franchise out of the spycraft source material from author Mark Greaney — something that would take Netflix's big-budget investments in a different direction from the prestige-oriented Martin Scorsese film The Irishman. Greaney is also known for taking over Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series after the author's death.

With a pair of movie stars going full Spy vs. Spy in a film co-written by Joe alongside his frequent MCU collaborators Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the film looks to capitalize on a similar vibe as the Mission: Impossible movies or underappreciated The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Spy/assassin Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling) is being hunted by his old CIA co-worker Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans). Expect plenty of gadgets, double-crosses, and action setpieces. Jason Bourne who?

The movie looks to set up a series — starring Gosling — that'll take the same route as the books, which kicked off a bestselling franchise. 

The idea is to create a franchise and build out a whole universe, with Ryan at the center of it," Joe Russo said. "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."

Explaining the film's touchstones, Anthony Russo explained that, “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. For those who were fans of Captain America: Winter Soldier, this is us moving into that territory in more of a real world setting.”

As for when things kick off, the pandemic has production looking towards January.