Tom Cruise in talks for Guy Ritchie's 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'

Warner Bros. has been trying unsuccessfully to get a big screen version of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. going for three years. Once a project helmed by Steven Soderbergh with George Clooney as one of the leads, the director dropped out when the studio was less than thrilled with his picks of Michael Fassbender or Joel Kinnaman to co-star. Clooney also left, and the project was picked up by Sherlock Holmes director Guy Ritchie. Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling were floated as possibilities to replace Clooney, but nothing concrete has been heard since.

It would be another chance for Cruise to revive another 1960s spy series, just as he's done with Mission: Impossible. While 'Ghost Protocol' proved to be a huge hit, Cruise has struggled to capitalize on it, although Deadline suggests that Jack Reacher may have earned enough worldwide to warrant a sequel.  He'll be seen next in two straight science fiction offerings: Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion, then Doug Liman's All You Need is Kill, Warner Bros. having approached Cruise after the latter film wrapped.

'U.N.C.L.E.' 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. The show was more campy than Mission: Impossible, and under Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns it would have relied heavily on the time period, probably in a similar fashion as their film The Informant! But with Ritchie at the helm now, all bets are off as to the approach he'll take.