Knives Out star Ana De Armas is joining both Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans for Netflix's upcoming spy thriller, The Gray Man. The project is due to be directed by Marvel collaborators Joe and Anthony Russo and follows a former CIA operative turned freelance assassin named Court Gentry, who is also known as the Gray Man. Gosling will star as Gentry, who is hunted across the globe by his former CIA cohort Lloyd Hansen, played by Evans.

There is no news yet on who Ana de Armas will be playing in the movie, but the actress has been on a hot streak of late with roles in the frequently delayed James Bond outing No Time to Die and as Norma Jean AKA Marilyn Monroe in director Andrew Dominik's Blonde still to come. The actress has starred alongside both Gosling and Evans in the past, in the equally brilliant Blade Runner 2049 and Knives Out respectively.

Netflix's adaptation of The Gray Man is based on the 2009 debut novel by Mark Greaney, with the Russo Brothers recently revealing that they are planning for the movie to spawn a franchise featuring Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling. While speaking at the recent CCXP event, Joe Russo explained that The Gray Man will not leave audiences with all the answers, making way for more adventures to come. "What we're doing on Gray Man that's different [is]... we're not gonna answer every question in the first movie," he said.

"This is being conceived as a series of films, and again, potentially branching out, we could follow other characters, but we're not gonna answer every question in the movie. So you're gonna finish the movie, [and] have a complete story, but you're still gonna have questions about the wider universe. And I think that's one way to break the model a little bit, is to not give the audience everything in one film. Don't have a close-ended narrative. Have an open-ended narrative that's [like] a chapter in a book."

With a $200 million budget, The Gray Man will reportedly be one of Netflix's most expensive ventures, and clearly the Russo's have big plans for the franchise, envisioning both sequels and spin-offs in the franchise's future. Joe Russo teased how such a big budget is being used (aside from the A-list cast, of course), revealing that the story will take the characters to a variety of different locations all over the world, and that they plan to press ahead and film on location in all of them, despite the ongoing global situation.

"We have an incredible team and Netflix has been very supportive. [the current situation] hasn't impacted our location shooting," he said. "This is a big, global spy thriller. Its intent is, it's gonna hit a lot of different locations, and we're still gonna film in those locations. So, we're excited about that because it's really important to the storytelling that we visit these different locations."

Before she globe-trots with Gosling and Evans, Ana De Armas will hone her skills for espionage alongside one of cinema's most iconic spies, James Bond, in No Time to Die. Featuring Daniel Craig's last performance as 007, No Time to Die is due for release on 2 April 2021. This comes to us courtesy of Deadline.