Man From U.N.C.L.E. gets new director

Next they’ll be saying there’s an A-Team movie on the way.

Ahem, yes. So '60s TV series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. has been in the Hollywood movie loading bay for some time now, with Matthew Kick-Ass Vaughn giving the project the up-down back in 2004.

But despite Vaughn (and presumably numerous others) passing on the project, Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin is apparently interested in claiming the flick as his own.

And although there have been numerous false starts, it seems that U.N.C.L.E. really could be gearing up to go, as new writer Max Borenstein has also been recruited to write his own draft of the script.

The original series, which lasted for four seasons, starred Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo, an agent for the United Network Command for Law Enforcement. Along with his Russian partner Illya Kuryakin, he attempted to stall the schemes of an organisation known as THRUSH, who were always up to no good.

Will this new movie version be a serious update, or a tongue-in-cheek chuckler? With Dobkin involved, we’re expecting more of the latter, less of the former.

Also, expect rumours of Owen Wilson’s interest in playing Russian Illya to begin circulating pretty sharpish, like.

Is it time for Hollywood to lay off on the TV adaps?

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.