Tom Cruise drops out of Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
For Tom Cruise, the Mission Impossible franchise is like the loyal wife that will stick by your side through thick and thin, while every other project is just a beautiful one night stand. So don’t blame Tom Cruise for bailing out of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. in order to focus on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 5, which is slated to start filming later this year. Sure, it’s fun to play around, but when the wife comes calling, you better run. Tom Cruise knows that MI5 is going to set him up for a few years, just like MI4 did, so it only makes sense that he would dedicate the rest of the year to focus on it.
Unfortunately for Warner Bros., the Guy Ritchie adaptation of the old TV show was supposed to start filming later this year and now they’re going to have to scramble to find another lead opposite Armie Hammer. WB has stuck by this project for a while, rebuilding it after Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney dropped out a few years ago. They seem to have hope that it can turn into a nice franchise for them, so the search will continue to find a replacement. They want an A-list actor to fill the void and so let the rumors of Brad Pitt and Robert Downey Jr. commence since both of them have strong ties to Warner Bros. and both have worked with Guy Ritchie before.
Personally, I don’t see much to get excited about when it comes to this project. I’m a fan of Tom Cruise, but I have little interest in seeing him in another agent/spy type film. I’ve never seen an episode of the show, but I’m not sure what Warner Bros. sees in this project to be pushing it so hard. The original television show ran from 1964-1968 and focused on two clever agents of the United Network Command for Law Enforcement (U.N.C.L.E.) named Solo (Cruise) and Kuryakin (Hammer) that battle the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity (Deadline).
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