There’s definitely been movement on the long-gestating “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” adaptation — the American spy double-act TV show of the sixties starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum.
Producers John Davis and Jeff Kleeman of Warner Bros. had long had David Dobkin, director of the surprisingly great “Wedding Crashers,” attached to this film, but with his upcoming work on “The Change-Up” and a commitment to comic book adaptation “R.I.P.D.” it appears he’s left the project. A relative cinematic newcomer, Max Borenstein,was hired to pen the script recently and according to the L.A. Times, now that Dobkin is off the project, they offered the directing gig to Doug Liman, hoping to pique his “The Bourne Identity”/”Mr. & Mrs. Smith” spy proclivities, as the fledgling writer had already turned in his screenplay.
As we detailed at length a few months ago, they’ve been trying to make “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” for quite some time now and interested parties have included Matthew Vaughn and to some extent Quentin Tarantino (who is sort of chomping at the bit to one day make a British Spy movie).
But while Liman was interested, it seems that he ultimately passed. The filmmaker was helming a “Three Musketeers” movie, but with the Paul W.S. Anderson’s competing ‘Musketeers’ project underway shortly, it appears the project is dead (and the LATimes backs this posit by reporting that the project is probably going on the “backburner”).
But Liman is clearly on the hunt for a new project. And the guy is sort of a fascinating figure, seemingly battling his popcorn tendencies (the abysmal “Jumper,” the underrated “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”) with the more serious legacy of his father, legendary attorney Arthur L. Liman (which begat projects like the upcoming political film, “Fair Game,” and the potential prison riot picture about the infamous incident at Attica in the 1970s).
What will Liman take? He’s been circling lots of projects. One is the sci-fi actioner “All You Need Is Kill,” which writer Dante Harper wrote on spec, as an adaptation of the Hiroshi Sakurazaka novel and the other is a Coen Bros-scripted remake of “Gambit.”
Most people seem to have forgotten, but there was also an untitled moon project that Liman had been working on, with Jake Gyllenhaal as an astronaut involved in a lunar colonization, back in 2009, but it’s possible Duncan Jones’ similar-sounding “Moon” may have killed it. There’s also been talk of a “Jumper 2,” but god no, please.
The short take away from all this rambling: Liman will announce his next official project soon, probably (sounds like he’s attaching himself to several projects at once in hopes of finding the one he really wants; though ‘Kill’ looks like the frontrunner) and Warner Bros. will likely find a director for their ‘U.N.C.L.E’ film in the next few weeks if all goes well. “Fair Game” will probably hit theaters sometime this fall or in the heart of Oscar season.