As more and more streaming services arrive, Peacock and HBO Max being two of the latest, Netflix is hell bent on making sure that it is the premiere destination for all of our streaming needs.
The streaming service has set “The Gray Man” in production, which pairs Avengers: Endgame Directors with their leading man Chris Evans. Joe and Anthony Russo, who last directed Avengers: Endgame the highest grossing movie of all time, are going to return to the directors chair for this film.
Joining them is Captain America himself, Chris Evans, who will play a CIA agent Lloyd Hansen, on the hunt for his old CIA partner and friend Gentry (Ryan Gosling).
The Gray Man
Netflix Commits Largest Budget So Far For ‘The Gray Man;’ Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans Star, Joe & Anthony Russo Direct Mano A Mano Espionage Thriller https://t.co/XwaH7V3CBG pic.twitter.com/HaAEbY4ocm
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) July 17, 2020
The movie is set to be the start of a franchise for Gosling and marks his latest big screen project. Gosling has mostly been doing more indie projects ever since he turned his attention away from rom-coms but it looks like he is now joining more mainstream projects.
Read more: Old Batman actor Michael Keaton set to reprise his role in new Flash movie
The actor recently signed on to play Wolfman with The Invisible Man director Leigh Wannel of The Invisible Man fame. Now, he is looking to appear in his first franchise role as criminal Court Gentry who appears in the 2009 Mark Greaney novel The Gray Man. Gosling’s turn as freelance assasin will be the center focus for the franchise and while the directors will bring back Ryan Gosling, there is no word yet if Chris Evans will return past the first film.
In a statement to Deadline Joe Russo stated “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.”
His brother and fellow director on the project Anthony Russo also 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.”
Netflix and The Russo Brothers
Captain America: The Winter Soldier is touted as among the best superhero films to be ever made, combining cold war drama with superhero hijinks. It remains one of the fans’ and critics’ favorite MCU film to date and was the reason behind the directors being asked to return for more Marvel films.
Read More: Watchmen: The defining series of 2020?
It thus makes perfect sense why the directors are hoping to use that to build this franchise from the ground up. The directors have already established a great relationship with Netflix, with their first production for Netflix, Extraction starring Chris Hemsworth, becoming the most watched Netflix movie to date. That is probably why Netflix has set a budget of around $200 million for the movie, a figure that Netflix has not yet spent on a single film.
So many great stories have found their audience across the world on Netflix over the past few months.
Here are a few stats of note:
— Netflix Queue (@netflixqueue) July 16, 2020
Netflix is on quite a roll lately with the streamer, besting expectations yet again to add 10.09 million subscribers during its second quarter, bringing its global base to nearly 193 million after a record-breaking first quarter that saw it add 15.8 million.
These figures, coupled with Netflix’s investment on this project prove how well the streamer is doing for itself despite the competitive environment.