Steven Soderbergh In Talks To Direct ‘Man From U.N.C.L.E.’
Everyone who wants to see aSteven Soderberghspy film raise their hands. Well, you just may get your wish. The eclectic, Academy Award winning director is currently in talks to direct an adaptation of the mid-Sixties spy television showThe Man From U.N.C.L.E.Scott Z. Burns, who wrote two of Soderbergh’s most recent films –The Informant!and the currently in productionContagion– is also in talks to come on as a writer. The show was about an American and Russian spy who worked together for the agency called the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.
The film, which is set up at Warner Brothers,was originally going to bea more comedic take on the material with directorDavid Dobkin(Wedding Crashers) working from a script byMax Borenstein.Dobkin will reportedly stay on as a producer but Burns will look to write a new script. Read more after the jump.
The Hollywood Reporterexclusively broke the news of Soderbergh’s involvement with the project and made the insightful statement that “with Soderbergh’s varied resume, from the light touches ofErin Brockovichand theOcean’s Elevenmovies to the more emotionally complex films likeTrafficandSolaris, there’s no telling which way the project will go.”
The show, which aired from 1964-1968, was partially created byJames Bondcreator Ian Fleming, so you know it wasn’t a comedic take on the spy genre. In retrospect, it probably looks funny to most of us (just check out the credit sequence below), and that’s the vibe the Dobkin version was going to take. However, in Soderbergh’s hands, it could be anything fromGet SmarttoCasino Royale. The man can basically do it all.
If the tone of the film is the main question surrounding it. The second one is when will it actually get made? Soderbergh has one film that’s just waiting for release –Haywire– and he’s now shootingContagion.The Hollywood Reportersurmises that he’d be ready to shoot this at the end of 2011. But a whole lot can happen in twelve months.
Below you may see the opening titles ofThe Man From U.N.C.L.E.and get an idea of how something that was serious in the Sixties doesn’t look so serious today. What direction would you like to see Soderbergh take this film? And are there any fans of the series out there that think this is a match made in heaven?
