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via Warner Bros.
The ongoing existence and success of such properties as James Bond, Jason Bourne, Mission: Impossible, Jack Ryan, Kingsman, and many others indicates that audiences are eager for recurring espionage adventures on both the big and small screen, but Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. didn’t even get a chance to state a case.
Despite winning stellar reviews and almost immediately securing a status as a fun-filled and frothy spy caper, the adaptation of the classic TV show cratered at the box office by earning a mere $107 million from theaters on an estimated $80 million budget, neutering any chance of sequels.
Of course, maybe that was for the best seeing as any prospective follow-ups would have featured Armie Hammer in a major starring role, but it still stings that such an explosively entertaining globetrotting adventure was allowed to wither and die on the vine in the way that it did.
Even now, almost a decade after its release, Redditors have been lamenting the failure of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. all over again, with a lackluster marketing campaign and a debut mere weeks after Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation taking the brunt of the blame. Director Ritchie was game for more, and so was star Henry Cavill, but in the end everyone ended up with nothing.
One positive is that the aforementioned filmmaker and actor have renewed their working relationship through upcoming war epic The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and an untitled action flick, but there’s still a whole lot of people out there who would have much rather seen the deposed Superman return as Napoleon Solo at least one more time.