'The Gray Man': Russo brothers reveal how Netflix movie sets up MCU-style shared universe
Directors Joe and Anthony Russo took the world by storm after directing ‘Captain America: Winter Soldier’ in 2012. The movie turned out to be a huge success and is still considered to be one of the top movies produced by Marvel. Since then, the duo has directed three more Marvel films, including the magnum opus ‘Avengers: Endgame’. Both the directors have a strong connection with the world of Marvel and they continue to come on board as consultants for several projects. However, the duo is set to take everyone on a thrilling ride with their upcoming movie ‘The Gray Man’.
The movie, once again, sees the Russo brothers collaborating with ‘Captain America’ star Chris Evans and superstar Ryan Gosling. Based on the novel of the same name by Mark Greaney, the Netflix movie revolves around the CIA’s most skilled mercenary known as Court Gentry, who discovers some really dark secrets about the agency he is working for. As soon as he goes rogue, his psychopathic former colleague Lloyd Hansen is called in to take down the Gentry threat by killing him. Although the movie is way different than any Marvel movie that the aforementioned filmmakers have made, there’s still something that makes ‘The Gray Man’ similar to Marvel movies.
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While promoting the Netflix movie, filmmaker Anthony Russo opened up about their approach while making the action flick and how their past experiences with Marvel helped them in creating a better narrative. In an interview with Screen Rant, Anthony also revealed that they approached ‘The Gray Man’ with the vision of a “narrative universe” that could spawn spin-off shows and a wide range of movies.
“We certainly think like that. We formed [our] company, AGBO, with our partners Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely who wrote all of our Marvel movies, so we love thinking about narrative universes. It's in our DNA now from our work at Marvel. So most things we do here we think about as a narrative universe. Certainly, that's how we approach 'The Gray Man'. We have many iterations of this narrative in our minds and it can have a variety of expressions, either in films or series,” Russo said.
‘The Gray Man’ will be the duo’s biggest film after ‘Avengers: Endgame’. Reports suggest that the production budget of the upcoming Netflix movie is around $200 million and features a stellar cast, including Evans, Gosling, Ana de Armas, Jessica Henwick, Dhanush, Rege-Jean Page, and Billy Bob Thornton.
It is one of the most highly-anticipated movies of the year and there’s a lot at stake for the Russo brothers as well because their previous passion project, ‘Cherry’, turned out to be a dud. The movie, which starred Tom Holland in the lead role, received mixed reviews from the critics as well as audiences and was criticized for its story and direction. So, the Russo brothers will be itching to get back to winning ways with ‘The Gray Man’ and get another hit in their briefcase.
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It will be interesting how the movie manages to set up a universe that could be explored in a variety of ways.
‘The Gray Man’ will be premiering exclusively on Netflix on Friday, July 22.