#Ryan Gosling & Chris Evans Team with Avengers: Endgame Directors for Netflix’s Biggest Movie Yet

Netflix has just picked up The Gray Man, which is set to be the streaming service’s most expensive original movie to date. Ryan Gosling (La La Land, The Nice Guys) and Chris Evans (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Knives Out) are set to co-star in the movie, which will be directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo, the duo behind Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. The goal is to create a new action franchise, comparable to James Bond in scale.

According to a new report, Joe Russo penned the screenplay, with Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (Avengers: Endgame, Captain America: Civil War) doing a rewrite. The Russos will produce through their AGBO production company. Described as an action/thriller, The Gray Man centers on a deadly duel between two killers. Gentry (Ryan Gosling) is hunted all around the world by Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), who used to work with Gentry at the CIA. Anthony Russo had this to say.

“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 hope is to begin filming in Los Angeles this January, with shooting in international locations planned as well. Netflix is said to be shelling out $200 million or more for the production. The movie is adapted from The Gray Man best-selling novel series by Mark Greaney. Joe Russo had this to say.

“The intention is for it to be competitive with any theatrical and the ability to do with Ryan Gosling and Chris 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 character 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.”

Joe and Anthony Russo previously produced Extraction for Netflix, which was recently revealed to be the company’s biggest original movie ever. The Russos spent a handful of years in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, directing four movies in total. They all went on to become huge hits. Avengers: Endgame, specifically, went on to become the highest-grossing movie in history. That has put them in high-demand.

Mike Larocca, Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum are also on board as producers. The Russo Brothers already wrapped filming on Cherry, which stars Tom Holland and was smaller in scale. It is expected to arrive sometime this year. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as any further details are made available. This news comes to us via Deadline.

Topics: The Gray Man, Netflix, Streaming