For nearly two decades, a film adaptation of the hit 1960s spy series “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” seemed perpetually on the brink of getting made. Warner Bros. nearly enticed Quentin Tarantino to take it on in the mid-1990s as his hotly anticipated follow-up to “Pulp Fiction,” but he chose to make “Jackie Brown” instead. Directors like Matthew Vaughn and David Dobkin circled the project. A-listers Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Christian Bale and Ryan Reynolds (among many others) eyed the film at one point or another. Steven Soderbergh came very close to helming a version starring George Clooney as Napoleon Solo (the role originated by Robert Vaughn), but he backed out over budget issues. The film was a go in 2013 with Guy Ritchie directing Tom Cruise and Armie Hammer as, respectively, Solo and Illya Kuryakin (played by David McCallum on the show), but Cruise stuck with Ethan Hunt and the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.
At this point, WB and producer John Davis were practically past the starting line (Alicia Vikander had been cast in the female lead), so they quickly pivoted to Henry Cavill, who was on the cusp of superstardom at the time as the DC Extended Universe’s Superman, as Solo and plunged into production. Everyone from Ritchie on down brought their A-game. “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” is a smart, stylish piece of Hollywood action filmmaking. It should’ve been a hit.
Alas, audiences were cool to the film when it opened on August 14, 2015. Mixed reviews certainly didn’t help its cause, but the film’s biggest impediment was the competition. “Mission: Impossible –- Rogue Nation” was still going great guns in its third weekend of release (proving Cruise chose wisely), while “Straight Outta Compton” was all the rage with its stunning $60 million debut. Nine years later, Netflix subscribers appear to be coming around on the movie in a big way –- and the timing for its delayed popularity couldn’t be better for Cavill.
Netflix subscribers cry U.N.C.L.E.!
As of August 1, 2024, Guy Ritchie’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” is the fourth most popular film on Netflix behind “Trolls Band Together,” “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” and “Land of Bad” (via FlixPatrol). Those three movies are all less than a year old, which makes the renewed interest in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” notable.
This is great news for Cavill, who, up until his cameo in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” wasn’t having a particularly great 2024. He kicked off the year as the title character in Vaughn’s box office bomb “Argylle” (which grossed $96 million worldwide on a budget of $200 million) and led the ensemble of Ritchie’s unsuccessful “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” He’s got another Ritchie film in the pipeline called “In the Grey,” which Lionsgate currently has scheduled to open in theaters on January 17, 2025.
If Lionsgate is worried about Cavill and Ritchie’s wildly unprofitable previous output, perhaps it can generate audience interest via their suddenly resurgent 2015 commercial disappointment. It’s certainly a better movie than “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” and, who knows — if it sticks around in Netflix’s top 10 for a while, maybe it’ll get WB interested in a sequel (though the now-dropped abuse allegations against Hammer would likely complicate this decision).
Whatever happens, Cavill is terrific in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and deserves better than he’s gotten at the box office of late. If you’re one of those folks who passed on this funky spy flick nine years ago, I urge you to fire it up on Netflix posthaste. It’s a slick, sexy delight!
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