George Clooney drops out of Steven Soderbergh's The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

We're running out of chances to see Steven Soderbergh direct before his so-called retirement. All three of his remaining films are wildly different from eachother, and are films I don't know if anybody else would touch. One is the male stripper flick, Magic Mike, which kicks off next month. And then he's also got his Liberace biopic. But the one I thought was the strangest was his planned big screen take on The Man From U.N.C.L.E., based on the television series from the 1960s.

George Clooney, who has worked with Soderbergh numerous times over the years, was set to star in the role made famous by Robert Vaughn, but now Deadline reports he's dropping out of the film. No reason has been given, but with the shoot date set for February of next year, it's likely that Clooney will just be too busy. I can't think of any other reason why he'd back down from one of the last gigs by his best bud.

For those unfamiliar, the show followed two secret agents, Napoleon Solo(Robert Vaughn) and Russian Illya Kuryakin(David McCallum) in a secret global espionage force known as U.N.C.L.E., battling the schemes of a worldwide criminal organization known as T.H.R.U.S.H. The remake, featuring a script by writer Scott Z. Burns(Contagion) will take place during the same time period, sticking with the original concept. There was dreadful sounding comedic take on the series to be directed by David Dobkin(Wedding Crashers), but thankfully that was scrubbed when Soderbergh came aboard.

I won't be surprised if Soderbergh drops out of this film now, especially if he can't get one of his buddies(Matt Damon??? Brad Pitt?? Don Cheadle?) in a lead role.