Get ready for a new action franchise.

 

By Jordan Hoffman | April 15, 2022

 

 

BY JEFF KRAVITZ/GETTY IMAGES

 

Flush with a reported 10 million new subscribers and a hit on their hands with the Joe and Anthony Russo-produced actioner Extraction, the streaming giant Netflix has bombarded the siblings with unprecedented amounts of cash for their next feature. With Deadline reporting “upward of $200 million,” the duo will direct an adaptation of Mark Greaney’s novel The Gray Man, with an eye towards a franchise. This is Netflix's largest budget to date.

The Gray Man will star Ryan Gosling as a former CIA operative/current gun-for-hire named Court Gentry. Chasing Gosling to the four corners of the Earth will be Chris Evans as the former spook’s nemesis Lloyd Hansen. Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeely, who wrote the Avengers and Captain America films, will adapt Greaney’s novel.

The Gray Man, published in 2009, is the first of a series of nine globe-trotting books. “Cinematic battles and escapes fill out the simplistic but satisfying plot,” wrote Publisher’s Weekly in their capsule review of the initial entry. Originally, director James Gray had been developing the property as a Brad Pitt vehicle.

“The intention is for it to be competitive with any theatrical [film], and the ability to do [it] with with Gosling and Evans is a dream for us,” Joe Russo told Deadline. “The idea is to create a franchise and build out a whole universe, with Ryan at the center of it.”

Shooting is set to begin this January in Los Angeles, with overseas locations still being finalized.

If you are itching to know more about Gosling's potential challenger to 007's spy hero throne, Gray Man fans have built Court Gentry his very own wiki for you to explore.