, Oceans Eleven
), I find that even his most experimental projects(The Girlfriend Experience
, Bubble) are interesting experiences creatively. Even his misfires have value. So while we await the director's next flick, the action thriller Haywire, now word has dropped that he's in talks to adapt 1960s spy series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E
. Why does anybody want to adapt such a lousy(in my opinion, anyway) show? No clue, but if anyone can make it interesting it's Soderbergh. This is coming out of Warner Brothers, who have made it clear that they only make "big tentpole" flicks now, so I'm guessing they had the rights just laying around somewhere and said "Ahhh fuck it let's do it". The Man from UNCLE ran from 1964-68, and starred Robert Vaughn and David McCollum as a pair of secret agents, one American and one Russian, who helped prevent international threats. Their main nemesis was a global criminal organization known as THRUSH. My Dad used to watch reruns of this show and I caught it a few times in the process, and I thought it was cheesy even back then. It's not that the tone of the series was light hearted or anything. It was probably just extremely dated.
The original plan was to have this film adaptation be a comedy, with Wedding Crashers
director David Dobkin on board. Those plans have obviously changed to some degree. Dobkin is still producing, but a new script is being hammered out by Scott Z. Burns, a frequent Soderbergh collaborator. I'm going to assume that his approach will be slightly more serious, but I could be wrong. Burns and Soderbergh last teamed up on the whistleblower comedy, The Informant!
just last year.
