Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling to star in Netflix’s most expensive movie yet

Anthony and Joe Russo have cast Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling as the leads in The Gray Man, their upcoming adaptation of Mark Greaney’s novel that is going to be Netflix’s most expensive movie yet.

The Gray Man is set to cost the streaming service at least £175 million ($200 million) to make, with Deadline also reporting that its scale will rival that of the James Bond franchise.

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Gosling will play Court Gentry, a freelance assassin and former CIA operative, who is hunted across the world by his former colleague, Chris Evans’ Lloyd Hansen. Released in 2009, The Gray Man became the first of a number of books, and it is believed that Gosling has signed up to play Gentry in a number of movies.

As you could have probably guessed, both Russos are rather excited about their new adventure, with Anthony teasing that it actually has a lot in common with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the first movie they directed for Marvel.

“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.”

Meanwhile, Joe Russo says that he and his brother, as well as Netflix, Gosling, and Evans, are already looking beyond the first movie.

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“The intention is for it to be competitive with any theatrical, and the ability to do with with Gosling and 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 characters 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.”