Warner Bros. hopes to turn the film into a franchise despite the falling out of Tom Cruise in late May and a paring down of the production budget to $75 million. Plans are to shoot the film in Ritchie’s native London and in Italy working from a script written by Ritchie with his Sherlock Holmes collaborator, writer and producer Lionel Wigram, acting as the origin story to tell how the two spies, one American and Russian, first met and started working together. Those roles were originally played by Robert Vaughn (Solo) and David McCalllum (Kurayakin) in the original series.
You can read the full extended story about how this project came together despite having been in development hell and losing previous directors and stars like Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney over at Variety.
