Warner Bros. is looking to freshen up a TV show from the '60s with one of Hollywood's emerging young stars, possibly Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ryan Gosling or Alexander Skarsgard, according to an individual close to the production.
The studio is planning a remake of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and plans to put some pretty heavy resources into the movie. Steven Soderbergh (left) is directing and David Dobkin, Jeffrey Kleeman and John Davis are producing.
Now the search is on for some male leads.
There was talk that George Clooney, who frequently works with Soderbergh, was set to play the lead, but the actor is not in.
The original “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” starred Robert Vaughn and David McCallum. Clooney, presumably, was to play the Vaughn role.
In fact, "The Man" actually was "the men." Vaughn and McCallum played Napolean Solo and Ilya Kuryakin — agents with the United Network Command for Law Enforcement (i.e. U.N.C.L.E.).
Their nemesis? The evil Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity (aka THRUSH).
For the McCallum role, the studio is looking for a leading man in his 20s. Executives have a wish list of about 20 of actors — people like Gordon-Levitt, Gosling, Skarsgard — it would like to see in the movie.
The original was a buddy show, and the big-screen version will be a buddy movie — an action-comedy with a tone like “Lethal Weapon," and, like the TV show, set in the 1960s.
