The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

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2011 is shaping up to be a banner year for director Steven Soderbergh and therefore likely a big one for Warner Bros. too.

The prolific filmmaker is planning on releasing his latest spy-based action thriller “Haywire” next spring, he’s currently shooting the virus thriller “Contagion” for an already-planned October 21, 2011 release date (Matt Damon, Kate Winslet and Gwyneth Paltrow are just a few of the A-list names, but no, it won’t be in 3D), and he’s just announced his latest project, the big screen version of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E” for the aforementioned WB.

But it’s even getting even better.

Sources very close to the director tell us an A-lister is already in talks with Soderbergh to star in the picture and that star would be none other than “Ocean’s 11-13” actor, George Clooney.

Clooney and Soderbergh are obviously not strangers as the actor has starred in six of the director’s films, including “Solaris,” “The Good German” and “Out Of Sight.” Their now-defunct co-owned film production company, Section Eight also produced “Syriana” as well as the Clooney-directed films “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” and “Good Night, And Good Luck”.

We’re also told that as awesome as this sounds, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E” is still very much in its early stages. However, WB chief Jeff Robinov has signed off on Soderbergh’s original take on the material, which would not modernize the film and keep it set in the director’s beloved 1960s (one just needs to take a look at “The Limey” for how much affection the lenser has for this era of filmmaking).

Another plan is to start from scratch which would mean throwing out all the old existing scripts (various iterations penned by Max Borenstein and David Campbell Wilson once for David Dobkin, now a producer on the project and Doug Liman who eventually passed). So Scott Z. Burns, who wrote Soderbergh’s “The Informant,” “Contagion,” and recently turned in his draft of “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea” for David Fincher, would essentially start from a blank page and the idea is to “take back ‘U.N.C.L.E’ to its roots.”

We’re also told the Clooney/Soderbergh plan is being seen as their “last film together,” presumably because the helmer is still thinking about the early retirement he’s been envisioning for a few months now.

[phantomstranger]

Hopefully they won't screw it up as bad as "The Wild Wild West" movie
That was one of the best TV shows of all time and one of the worst movies

[newb]

Originally Posted by phantomstranger

Hopefully they won't screw it up as bad as "The Wild Wild West" movie
That was one of the best TV shows of all time and one of the worst movies

agreed on both counts