A few years ago, there was a lot of buzz about a planned movie makeover of the 1960s TV series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In the mid-2000s, Matthew Vaughn was lined up as the director, but dropped out to make Stardust instead. Since then the project been stuck in development limbo, with seemingly little forward motion but no one willing to completely cut their losses and run.
However now there does seem to be some movement again, with THR saying David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) is now attached to direct and that Warner has hired Mac Borenstein to have a crack at the script.
The original TV series featured the espionage adventures of Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David MacCallum), agents of United Network Command for Law Enforcement (U.N.C.L.E.), who fight the forces of T.H.R.U.S.H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity). The question remains though of what direction they want to take things for the film version.
Dobkins presence would suggest a campy, tongue in cheek affair, however Borenstein in known for more thinky pieces, such as his in-development Jimi hendrix biopic and a movie called History On Trial, which could suggest an U.N.C.L.E. movie more along the lines of the Bourne films.
Of course, all this may end up being moot, as there have been endless versions of the script and there’s still no shoot date in sight. Although Warner is defnitely trying to drag the film out of development hell, it’s got a long way to go yet.