After selecting director David Leitch (“Bullet Train,” “Deadpool 2”) to helm their first “Fast & Furious” spinoff film “Hobbs & Shaw,” Universal Pictures is reuniting with the action-focused filmmaker for a feature film version of the ’80s series “The Fall Guy.” An impressive collection of actors has already been assembled, with Ryan Gosling (“Blade Runner 2049”), Emily Blunt (“Edge of Tomorrow”), Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All At Once“), and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (“Bullet Train”) attached to the project.
With filming already underway, The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that another role has been filled as Winston Duke has been enlisted to play the lead’s best friend. Duke, of course, is an actor on the rise playing M’Baku in both the popular “Black Panther” and “Avengers” franchises within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, alongside taking a key part in Jordan Peele’s horror thriller, “Us.”
The film remake penned by screenwriter Drew Pearce (“Iron Man 3”) is a new take and isn’t a direct adaptation of the 1980s series starring Lee Major. Instead, this latest incarnation will focus on a battered and past-his-prime stuntman (Gosling) who finds himself back in a movie with the star for whom he doubled long ago and who replaced him. The wrinkle in the plot, however, is that the star (Taylor-Johnson) has gone missing.
Gosling most recently played a spy in Netflix’s mega-expensive streaming blockbuster “The Gray Man” for The Russo Brothers and is set to lead a new “Wolf Man” remake film at Universal. He co-starred with Margot Robbie in a live-action “Barbie” film by director Greta Gerwig (“Little Women”).
Production on “The Fall Guy” began this week in Australia, which should help differentiate it visually from previous action films from Leitch. A villain has yet to surface, which is odd, but I’m sure we’ll hear about that casting soon.