A few days ago, Netflix released a list of its top 10 most-watched original films. Among the films that cracked the list include the Chris Hemsworth starrer, Extraction (production budget: $US 65 million), Michael Bay’s $US 150 million 6 Underground, and Martin Scorsese’s $US 160 million The Irishman. While there were smaller films that made the list too, including the Spanish, single location Sci-Fi thriller, The Platform, there’s no denying that the big-budget films with big names attached to it are performing exceptionally well too.
Now, the streaming giant is working on their biggest and most expensive movie to date. According to Deadline, the Russo brothers, the duo who helmed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and the highest-grossing film of all time, Avengers: Endgame, is set to direct a spy thriller for Netflix starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans.
HOLY SHIT!
Not only that, the film titled The Gray Man, reportedly has a budget north of US$ 200 million. To put things into perspective, that’s at least $US 30 million more than the theatrically released The Winter Soldier. The film is based on the book by Mark Greaney of the same name. Avengers: Endgame scribes Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely helped varnish the script penned by Joe Russo.
Ryan Gosling will be playing a freelance assassin and former CIA operative Court Gentry who’s hunted by his former friend Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans). The film is set to begin production in January.
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.”
His brother, Joe added, “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. The idea is to create a franchise and build out a whole universe, with Ryan at the center 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. We have a great working relationship with Netflix, and we go back almost 20 years with Scott Stuber. We formed AGBO to be an agnostic storytelling company, where we figure out the best platform. We think Netflix is the perfect place for this film.”
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