‘Avengers: Endgame’ directors Joe & Anthony Russo are set to take the helm for ‘The Gray Man,’ an adaptation of the Mark Greaney novel that has Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans attached to star.
Published in 2009, the action thriller is the first in a four-part series centring on Gosling’s character Court Gentry, a freelance assassin and former CIA operative who suddenly finds himself on the run through Europe with Lloyd Hansen (Evans), a former cohort of Gentry’s at the CIA, on his tail.
‘The Gray Man’ is set up at Netflix, with a budget upward of $200 million, making it the streaming giant’s most expensive movie. Joe Russo penned the adaptation, alongside Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (‘Captain America: Winter Solider,’ ‘Avengers’).
In a statement to Deadline Anthony Russo said, “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. That’s what this movie really means for us.”
“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,” said Joe Russo on the film’s scale. “The idea is to create a franchise and build out a whole universe, with Ryan at the centre 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.