Bradley Cooper wanted for The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

It wasn't long ago that we heard that Warner Bros had a pretty starry wishlist for Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of '60s TV series, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Well now there's word from Variety that Bradley Cooper has been offered the lead role of American agent Napoleon Solo, played by Robert Vaughn in the TV series.

It seems hard to believe that Cooper would turn down the chance to work with an on-form Soderbergh (especially as the director keeps threatening to retire), but scheduling could be an issue.

Cooper has completed work on Derek Cianfrance and Ryan Gosling's Blue Valentine follow-up The Place Beyond The Pines , and he'll soon be jumping into David O Russell's The Silver Linings Playbook .

Will he have time to shoot U.N.C.L.E. before he starts work on the ambitious Paradise Lost adaptation?

He's certainly got the looks, charm and confidence to play a slick '60s agent; expect to hear confirmation of this one way or another over the next couple of weeks.

There's currently no word on who'll play his partner, Russian Illya Kuryakin, though.

Soderbergh's Contagion is in cinemas now, with Haywire following in January.

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.