Some unanswered questions about an U.N.C.L.E. movie

Tom Cruise

Talk about a movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. isn’t going away. If anything, there are signs this project is, at the very least, inching ahead. So, naturally, there are questions begging to be asked, even if the answers aren’t forthcoming.

Is this thing actually going to happen? One sign the answer is yes was the news that a female lead may be cast. According to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, an actress has emerged as the female lead. An excerpt:

Rising Swedish actress Alicia Vikander is in negotiations for the female lead opposite Tom Cruise and Armie Hammer in Warner Bros.’ Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie.

(snip)

Vikander will play a British agent who has a thing for cars. The character did not appear in the TV series nor the short-lived spinoff, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., and is a new creation.

Why is that significant? Because during the long soap opera about a possible U.N.C.L.E. movie two years ago, when Steven Soderbergh was hired to direct, there was a lot of trouble casting the leads. For the past couple of months, reports from a variety of outlets have been consistently saying Cruise and Hammer would be the leads. During the Soderbergh project, you never heard about other parts.

Will this project use the Scott Z. Burns script that Soderbergh’s project was based on? Or is it another story entirely? That is one of the biggest of the unanswered questions. Burns’s script was a 1960s period piece that had some common elements to the 1965 007 film Thunderball.

Any red flags? A few. Warner Bros. hasn’t made an official announcement, though often lots of things leak out before a movie is announced. Meanwhile, Cruise is 50 (and turns 51 on July 3) and Vikander is 24 (turning 25 in October). May-December pairings can work. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were a quarter-century apart while Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn were 28 years apart, to cite two examples. But will it work in U.N.C.L.E. or just lead to some sarcastic humor among fans?

A natural speculation among fans is that Cruise’s Napoleon Solo (presuming he does play Solo and not a new character) will intentionally be older than the Solo of the show. Robert Vaughn, the original Solo, turned 31 while filming the U.N.C.L.E. pilot. He was 50, the same age Cruise is now, when he played Solo in the 1983 television movie, The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

If it gets made, when would this movie come out? Cruise seems to have a lot on his plate, including A FIFTH MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE MOVIE. Even a workaholic like Cruise can squeeze so many projects in a year’s time. It would seem to be 2014 at the earliest, perhaps even 2015 or 2016.

EARLIER POST: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: the long and the short and the tall

May 1963: Ian Fleming cries U.N.C.L.E.

Ian Fleming

May 1963 was an eventful month for James Bond author Ian Fleming.

It was THE MONTH that Dr. No finally reached the U.S. market after a slow rollout that began the previous October in the U.K. At last Americans, who’d heard about how President John F. Kennedy was a fan of Fleming’s books, could sample the first film adaptation. Meanwhile, a second Bond film, From Russia With Love, was in production.

It was also the month that things were coming to a head with the television project that producer Norman Felton had wanted to title Ian Fleming’s Solo.

In the middle of the month, things were picking up steam. Here’s an excerpt from CRAIG HENDERSON’S FOR YOUR EYES ONLY WEB SITE:

Tuesday, May 14, 1963
New York entertainment lawyer Ronald S. Konecky, in a letter to Fleming, delivers his legal opinion that Solo is not an infringement on Eon’s James Bond film rights.

Tuesday, May 14, 1963

Sam Rolfe delivers five-page memo to Norman Felton outlining in print for the first time the Solo format developed to date — with an organization known as U.N.C.L.E., headed by a Mr. Allison, employing Solo and agents of all nationalities, “even Russians,” and recurrent encounters with an international criminal group called Thrush. Rolfe eliminates Doris Franklyn, who’s both a secretary to Solo’s boss and a part-time actress in the Fleming-Felton notes, adding Allison’s secretary Miss Marsidan, “who is fat, fifty and somewhat on the motherly side.”

According to the timeline compiled by Henderson, writer Rolfe agreed a few days later “to rewrite the existing Solo format, develop story ideas and make further contributions to the format.”

Meanwhile, Fleming was getting cold feet under pressure from 007 film producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and their company, Eon Productions. In the early 1990s. Rolfe said at an event called Spy Con that Felton told him that Fleming was scared of Saltzman in particular. (Rolfe’s talk is on a YOUTUBE VIDEO but the sound is very feint; the Saltzman anecdote is around the 17:57 mark.)

The truth of this story is hard to determine. All concerned (Fleming, Felton, Rolfe, Broccoli and Saltzman) are dead and Rolfe was told about it second hand. In any event, on May 28, Fleming’s 55th birthday, the author wrote to the Ashley-Steiner Agency, where Phyllis Jackson, his U.S. agent worked, according to the Henderson timeline. The message: Fleming didn’t want to participate in Solo after all.

It was the beginning of the end for Ian Fleming’s Solo. Less than a month later, the author would sign away his rights to the show. Meanwhile, the James Bond films were gaining momentum and steps were being taken that would result in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. emerging in the place of Ian Fleming’s Solo.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: the long and the short and the tall

“Who’s going to play me?”
“Looks like you’re getting the short end, Napoleon.”

There’s the possibility that 5-foot-7 Tom Cruise may be paired with 6-foot-5 Armie Hammer in a movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., according to a story this week on the DEADLINE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS WEB SITE.

You’d think it’d be hard to film the pair together. But it’s actually only the latest twist in a spy property that’s had its ups and downs when it came to the subject of height.

It began with executive producer Norman Felton, who began work on U.N.C.L.E. in 1962. The 1950s and the early 1960s were a period when Westerns, with stars such as 6-foot-7 James Arness and 6-foot-6 Clint Walker, dominated U.S. television. Even in other genres, other stars might be tall. Felton himself had cast 6-foot-1 Richard Chamberlain as the title character in the television version of Dr. Kildare.

Felton, in a 1997 interview (portions of which can be seen on U.N.C.L.E. DVD extras), said he wanted a different type of lead character for U.N.C.L.E. and not “big, ballsy men.” He was looking for heroes who were more average looking.

Eventually, the producer cast 5-foot-10 Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo (who had worked on the Felton-produced The Lieutenant) and 5-foot-8 David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin. They were hardly runts, but definitely not built like Arness’s Matt Dillon.

Supposedly, according to dossiers held by the evil Thrush organization (in The Thrush Roulette Affair in the show’s FOURTH SEASON), Solo the character was 6-foot while Kuryakin was 5-foot-10 1/2.

Thrush clearly had some faulty information. In the FIRST SEASON episode The Never-Never Affair, 5-foot-8 1/2 guest star Barbara Feldon wears flat shoes to appear shorter than the leads. Even wearing the flat shoes, there is an Act II scene where her Mandy Stevenson character is clearly taller than McCallum’s Kuryakin.

That doesn’t mean McCallum was insecure was his height. The late writer-actor Stanley Ralph Ross, in a 1997 INTERVIEW with THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. EPISODE GUIDE said McCallum used his height to his advantage in a scene where Ross played a thug.

Question: What was it like for you a pretty tall fellow, working with a somewhat shorter David McCallum?

Ross: David asked me to stand on a box. I am already 6-6 and said that he would look like a midget but he replied the taller I was, the stronger and more macho he would seem for having beaten me up.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. began almost 50 years ago but even in the 21st Century, height or the lack of it can still create a stir. In 2005, Amy Pascal, a Sony Pictures executive, told THE NEW YORK TIMES that the newly cast 007 Daniel Craig “is tall. He’s the same size as Sean Connery.” Craig is 5-foot-10 while Connery is 6-foot-2 and change. Eight years later, the subject doesn’t come up that much, at least with Craig.

In any case, U.N.C.L.E. fans have been buzzing about the possibility about a new movie, and are getting worked up whether Cruise and Hammer have the right look, etc. For now, we’ll bide our time and have a cocktail — maybe a short one — while we wait for things to develop.

Armie Hammer may join U.N.C.L.E. film, Deadline says

Armie Hammer

Armie Hammer may join the cast of a movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and play Illya Kuryakin, according to A STORY on the Deadline Hollywood Web site.

An excerpt from the story:

EXCLUSIVE: Armie Hammer, who plays the title character opposite Johnny Depp in the Gore Verbinski-directed The Lone Ranger for Disney, is set to star with Tom Cruise in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the remake of the classic TV series that Guy Ritchie will direct for Warner Bros.

(snip)

Hammer would play a version of the role originated by (David) McCallum, an NCIS regular who strangely doesn’t seemed to have aged since the ’60s.

This story raises a few questions. Deadline’s PREVIOUS STORY on the subject said Tom Cruise was in talks but made it sound like nothing had been settled. The new story almost makes it sound like it’s a done deal. Is it? Or are there some more twists in store?

Also, Deadline has never said if Cruise, should he join the project, play Napoleon Solo, the character played by Robert Vaughn in the original television series. The character was co-created by Norman Felton and Ian Fleming with the rest of the series, including the U.N.C.L.E. organization and the Kuryakin character, devised by Sam Rolfe.

Open Channel D: William Boyd’s Fleming research gap

William Boyd

For more than a year now, fans of the literary James Bond have been told how William Boyd is the right man to do a new James Bond continuation novel.

For example, an APRIL 12, 2012 story in the U.K. newspaper the Telegraph had this passage:

Corinne Turner, managing director of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, said: “William Boyd is a contemporary English writer whose classic novels combine literary elements with a broad appeal.

“His thrillers occupy the niche that Ian Fleming would fill were he writing today and with similar style and flair. This, alongside his fascination with Fleming himself, makes him the perfect choice to take Bond back to his 1960s world.” (emphasis added).

Apparently the author’s fascination with Ian Fleming himself didn’t extend to titles. Boyd said April 15 that his 007 novel will be called Solo. In a written statement, Boyd said that Solo is “also a great punchy word, instantly and internationally comprehensible, graphically alluring and, as an extra bonus, it’s strangely Bondian in the sense that we might be subliminally aware of the “00” of “007” lurking just behind those juxtaposed O’s of SOLO…”

Of course, many people who are fascinated with Ian Fleming know he used the very same title — but for a television series, not a novel. While Fleming left the heavy lifting to others (principally writer Sam Rolfe), there were title pages for scripts and presentation materials that said “Ian Fleming’s SOLO,” featuring a character named Napoleon Solo, co-created by Fleming and producer Norman Felton.

The series, of course, became The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which ran from September 1964 to January 1968. The reason it wasn’t called Solo was 1) Fleming, under pressure from 007 film producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, pulled out of the TV project, selling his interest in the series for 1 British pound; 2) Broccoli and Saltzman unsuccessfully attempted to shut down production of the TV show, claiming their rights to Goldfinger (including a minor villain named Mr. Solo) had been violated but settling for the title being changed.

The Solo that William Boyd forgot

This is not an especially hard piece of information to find. Andrew Lycett, one of Fleming’s biographers, reminded his Twitter followers of the connection in a POSTING ON THE SOCIAL NETWORK SERVICE.

Andrew Lycett‏@alycett1
#IanFleming discussed Bond style tv series in US with producer Norman Felton, then backed out. Sold name Napoleon SOLO to Felton for £1.

Apparently, Corinne Turner also forgot about Solo and Ian Fleming (or, for that matter, the Mr. Solo character in Goldfinger). Here’s a Turner quote from the official PRESS RELEASE (VIA THE BOOK BOND WEB SITE): “Ian Fleming had a great aptitude for naming his books and his Bond titles have become true classics. Solo is a simple yet striking title which fits perfectly alongside the other books in the Bond canon.”

Now you might say, “Hey, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. hasn’t been broadcast for 45 years now.” True. “Hey, that’s just a footnote in Ian Fleming’s career.” Not really. Fleming was involved with the TV show from October 1962 to June 1963. It wasn’t just a passing fancy. He was seriously interested for a time. More importantly, it’s not just the name of an old television series. It was the name of an old television series that Ian Fleming was a participant. Some people might even find that fascinating.

The reverse Man From U.N.C.L.E. curse

Channing Tatum: one-time Solo contender, now hot Hollywood property

We’ve posted before about how there’s a CURSE that seems to prevent new versions of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. from becoming reality. But there also seems to be a reverse curse — actors who get mentioned as leads in a new U.N.C.L.E. but don’t end up in the roles do really, really well.

All of this is undoubtedly coincidence but consider:

George Clooney: The actor was director Steven Soderbergh’s first choice to play Napoleon Solo for an aborted U.N.C.L.E. project. The two had worked together multiple times but Clooney took his name out of the running, in part because he wasn’t up to the physical demands of the role. He ends up picking up an Oscar as one of the producers of Argo after that 2012 film received the Best Picture Academy Award.

Bradley Cooper Cooper was supposedly offered the role of Napoleon Solo after Clooney’s exit. At the time, he was seen as the star of comedies such as The Hangover that didn’t have a lot of content. Now, he’s viewed as a Serious Actor (R) after getting a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Silver Linings Playbook.

Michael Fassbender: There were multiple stories that Soderbergh suggested Michael Fassbender to play Napoleon Solo after Clooney and Cooper faded from the scene. Supposedly, Warner Bros. vetoed the choice because Fassbender wasn’t considered a star. Now, the German-Irish actor is considered a star.

Channing Tatum: The actor, who resembles a football linebacker, also was mentioned before Soderbergh finally quit his U.N.C.L.E. project. Last year, Paramount abruptly pulled GI Joe: Retaliation from release. The story at the time was the studio needed time to add 3-D effects. But the Deadline: Hollywood Web site reported the real reason was the need to re-shoot scenes so Tatum’s character wouldn’t get killed off because the studio brass had concluded he was now a star. Studios don’t reschedule big, expensive movies lightly. (UPDATE, March 31: If there were reshoots, well, Channing’s character doesn’t exactly come out whole, but he does take up a lot of the early part of the movie. GI Joe 2 also was the top film at the U.S. box office during Easter weekend.)

Joel Kinnaman: this actor was Soderbergh’s choice at one point to play Illya Kuryakin, but got vetoed by Warner Bros. because, you guessed it, he wasn’t considered a star. Subsequently, he was cast in the lead role in an upcoming remake of RoboCop. Apparently, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which also co-owns the 007 franchise, was willing to take a chance where Warner Bros. was not. MGM, though, hedged its bet by including Samuel L. Jackson and Gary Oldman in the cast.

11 questions about a Tom Cruise U.N.C.L.E. movie

Tom Cruise

Warner Bros. is in early talks about Tom Cruise starring in a movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., according to the Deadline: Hollywood and The Hollywood Reporter Web sites. But there’s been no studio confirmation. That’s understandable if they’re in negotiations.

Still, the development raises a number of questions in our mind. So, in honor of the No. 11 badge Napoleon Solo wore at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters, here are 11 of them.

1. Would Cruise play Napoleon Solo? No idea. Neither Deadline nor The Hollywood Reporter provided that information in their stories this week. When Cruise started his Mission: Impossible movies in 1996, he didn’t play a character from the original show. He played a new character, Ethan Hunt. The first movie turned Jim Phelps, the character played by Peter Graves in the original television series, into a villain.

2. He wouldn’t do that again, would he? Who knows? With Mission: Impossible, Cruise also doubled as producer. The current project is being headed up by Guy Ritchie, assigned by Warner Bros. after Steven Soderbergh bowed out of a possible U.N.C.L.E. movie in late 2011. Pulling the same trick twice, might seem tacky. Then again, Cruise might play a new character even if they don’t make Solo a villain.

3. If Cruise does play Solo, who plays Illya Kuryakin? That depends on the answer to question 1. It also depends on how big a role Kuryakin (if the character does appear) has in the movie.

4. How are long-time U.N.C.L.E. fans taking this? From our sampling, not that well, Earlier this week, we checked out the hashtag #manfromuncle on Twitter and the more vocal fans were quite annoyed, with at least one freely using swear words.

5. What are some of the fan complaints? A recurring one is that Cruise, 50, is too old. Robert Vaughn was 30 when he began filming the series pilot and celebrated his 31st birthday while the pilot was in production. Vaughn was 50 when The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. television movie aired in April 1983, which featured an aging Solo who returns to action 15 years after leaving the international intelligence agency.

6. Is that reaction surprising? No. Fans had the same complaint when George Clooney, born a year earlier than Cruise, was first mentioned as Soderbergh’s preferred choice for Solo. Same complaint, different actor.

7. What does this week’s news tell you about this possible movie? It indicates that Warner Bros. believes U.N.C.L.E. won’t work without a big name star. Some properties work with a relative unknown. The 1978 version of Superman was a hit with unknown Christopher Reeve in the title role, though Warners hedged its bet by having Marlon Brando as Jor-El and Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor. The 2002 Spider-Man movie had Tobey Maguire in the title role. But Superman and Spider-Man have been continuously published for decades and the public is more aware of them than U.N.C.L.E.

8. Let’s say Cruise does play Solo, Solo stays a hero and Cruise does a good job. Would there be any fan issues then? Not initially, but it does raise the question whether you can build a multi-movie franchise with an actor in his 50s — unless, of course, he’s really playing Alexander Waverly, the U.N.C.L.E. chief played by Leo G. Carroll in the original show. But that wouldn’t seem likely.

Robert Vaughn, the original Napoleon Solo

9. Is there a bright side to this week’s news? Yes. For a day or so, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was a hot topic on the Internet. On Yahoo, it was the number one topic after the two stories hit and other entertainment Web sites weighed in. The show went off the air in January 1968 and there has been no official U.N.C.L.E. production since the 1983 television movie. Suddenly, U.N.C.L.E. was a hot topic again, at least for a bit.

10. What are the odds of this becoming reality? For now, the odds are against it but only because studios release fewer movies than they did even a decade ago. Until filming begins, nothing is certain.

11. What’s your opinion? We’re trying not to think about it until there’s something to think about. There was a LONG SOAP OPERA when Soderbergh’s project was underway and we posted a lot about it. This time out (this post notwithstanding), we’d prefer to hold back until things are more certain.

Tom Cruise considering U.N.C.L.E., Deadline says

Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise is considering starring in a movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., ACCORDING TO A STORY ON THE DEADLINE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS WEB SITE.

Here’s an excerpt from the story by Mike Fleming Jr.:

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros may have finally found its The Man From U.N.C.L.E. I’m hearing that early talks with Tom Cruise to star in the film that will be directed by Sherlock Holmes helmer Guy Ritchie….Warner Bros. began quiet talks with Cruise after he completed All You Need Is Kill with director Doug Liman, which must have turned out pretty strong.

Cruise, 50, has starred in four Mission: Impossible films (though not as a character who was part of that 1966-73 television show). The fourth M:I movie, directed by Brad Bird, was arguably the one most faithful to the original. The first, in 1996, made Jim Phelps, hero M:I in the second through seventh seasons, the villain of the movie.

Warner Bros. has the rights to the 1964-68 U.N.C.L.E. show, featuring the exploits of Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn, misspelled in the Deadline story) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum). The studio was keen to have Steven Soderbergh direct a movie version but that fall apart in late 2011 AFTER A LONG SOAP OPERA. Warners assigned the project to Guy Ritchie with Soderbergh’s departure.

We’ll see. There has been A LONG HISTORY of unsuccessful attempts to revive U.N.C.L.E. The original series began with meetings in New York between producer Norman Felton and 007 author Ian Fleming in October 1962. Sam Rolfe did the heavy lifting coming up with a script for the pilot. Fleming exited the U.N.C.L.E. project in June 1963, signing away his rights for one British pound.

UPDATE (8:20 P.M.): The Hollywood Reporter HAS ITS OWN VERSION OF THE STORY. But the trade publication takes a more skeptical tone.

Guy Ritchie and his producing partner Lionel Wigram came on in December 2011 but they too had trouble finding their Solo and Kuryakin. Late last year the studio had offers out to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon to play the duo, offers that did not pan out.

Cruise just wrapped the sci-fi action movie All You Need is Kill for Warners, on which the studio is high. Sources have said that if the Cruise casting doesn’t gel, Ritchie will be forced to move on to a new movie project.

March 1963: Ian Fleming caught between two worlds

Ian Fleming

Fifty years ago this month, Ian Fleming was a busy man. Maybe too busy. He would soon be caught between the worlds of movies and television.

Dr. No, the first movie based on one of his 007 novels, had gotten off to a promising start. But as March 1963 began, it still had yet to debut in a number of major markets, including the U.S. Production would begin a month later on From Russia With Love. That was good news for the author. But Bond still wasn’t a phenomenon.

Meanwhile, Fleming had another iron in the fire. According to Craig Henderson’s U.N.C.L.E. For Your Eyes Only Web site:

March 1963
Ian Fleming, passing through New York on his way home to London after his annual stay at Goldeneye, discusses Solo with Phyllis Jackson.

She starts negotiations with MGM for Fleming’s participation in the series. NBC reconfirms that it will put an Ian Fleming TV series on the air without a pilot. At the same time, (producer Norman) Felton, realizing Fleming will not devote the time necessary to actually creating a concept ready for weekly production, enlists Sam Rolfe to develop a full series presentation.

Jackson was Fleming’s agent in the U.S. and was with the Ashley-Steiner Agency.

Presumably, Fleming had a copy of his You Only Live Twice novel manuscript in either his briefcase or luggage. The year before, in early 1962, Fleming had penned On Her Majesty’s Secret Service while in Jamaica and he had visited the Dr. No set. Readers wouldn’t discover for more than a year that Fleming has surprise in mind for the literary 007.

By early March 1963, it had been more than four months since Fleming had his first meetings in New York during late October 1962 with producer Felton to discuss a proposed television series to be called Solo that would feature a lead character named Napoleon Solo. Fleming hadn’t done the heavy lifting but his March ’63 meeting would seem to indicate he still remained interested in the project.

Within a few months, that would change. Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the producers of the 007 series, weren’t happy about Fleming’s potential new venture. According to the U.N.C.L.E. For Your Eyes Only site, Fleming was making counterproposals for his Solo deal as late as May 8. But on May 28, Fleming’s 55th birthday, he writes to Ashley-Steiner Agency to indicate he wants out of the television project.

Saturday, June 8 – Wednesday, June 12, 1963

Jerry Leider of Ashley-Steiner travels through London and meets with Fleming, who tells Leider that Saltzman and Broccoli have pressured him to drop out of Solo.

Fleming’s final exit occurs June 26. He signs away his interest in the television show for one British pound. By that time, filming on From Russia With Love was well underway, with a world premier scheduled for the fall of 1963.. Meanwhile, Fleming wouldn’t live to see debut of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the television’s show new title, debut on Sept. 22, 1964.

For more, CLICK HERE to see the U.N.C.L.E. For Your Eyes Only Web site for significant 1962 dates. CLICK HERE for significant 1963 dates.

How Hollywood still doesn’t get U.N.C.L.E.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: misunderstood in Hollywood

Scott Z. Burns, who wrote a script for a proposed movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., seems really proud that he based the plot off the real-life Palomares 1966 crash of a B-52 plane with atomic bombs.

There was one bomb that wasn’t recovered initially. It was “laying on the floor of the Mediterranean and no one could find it and so it was the race to find it that was what our episode was about,” Burns told Collider.com IN AN INTERVIEW. The scribe said he thought “it “was going to be really, really cool and I’m bummed we didn’t get to do it.”

The thing was the crash happened Jan. 17, 1966, less than a month after Thunderball, the fourth James Bond movie debuted. Thunderball centered on the theft of two atomic bombs from a NATO aircraft. When the Palomares incident occurred, comparisons to Thunderball were made then and sinceSUCH AS THIS 2012 STORY on the BBC’s Web site or THIS POST on the Web site of The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.

Put another way, Burns, who was working for director Steven Soderbergh (who ditched the project in late 2011), wasn’t exactly examining fresh ground. Especially considering the last official U.N.C.L.E. production, 1983′s The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. television movie, concerned how a resurgent Thrush (the villainous organization that opposed U.N.C.L.E. in the show) stole, you guessed it, two atomic bombs from a U.S. military plane.

What’s wrong with that? Wasn’t The Man From U.N.C.L.E. sold to NBC as “James Bond for television”? True enough, but if you take the time to actually watch the show, you’ll see some technology that still hasn’t been invented: a near limitless power source held in reserve in case Earth is ever invaded (The Double Affair); a vaporizer (The Arabian Affair); a mind-reading machine (The Foxes and Hounds Affair); and a serum that accelerates the healing process (The Girls of Nazarone Affair). And that’s just off the top of our head.

But U.N.C.L.E. was different than Bond in more than gadgets. The dynamic was noticeably different, in part, because Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) interacted with “innocents,” or stand-ins for the television audience. Some times, it was deliberate (recruiting a former girlfriend of the villain in the pilot episode), other times “innocents” got drawn into the story by dumb luck.

In any event, Solo and Kuryakin had to try to defeat the villain *and* look out for the “innocents. That element alone changed the dynamic significantly compared with James Bond’s film universe. In addition, Napoleon Solo while sharing Bond’s appreciation for the ladies, also had a moral streak Bond didn’t seem to exhibit.

Perhaps the best example was the show’s final episode, The Seven Wonders of the World Affair Part II. A former U.N.C.L.E. official, believes the world is inevitably headed for ruin unless the “right” people take over. Kingsley (Barry Sullivan) has access to a gas that will make people obedient (there’s that tech that hasn’t been invented yet). This way, “my way,” as Kingsley says, the never-ending battle between evil and good will be settled permanently for good.

Solo is offered a chance to join Kingsley but instead sharply criticizes Kingsley and his lieutenants, the “wonders” of the title. “In your world, Kingsley, there’ll be no wonder,” Solo says in what is one of Robert Vaughn’s best acting moments in the series. It’s a bit of gravitas in a story that was padded out for a two-part length so it could be released internationally as a movie.

You wouldn’t get much of this vibe from comments that Soderbergh and Burns made about U.N.C.L.E. while they were involved in the aborted movie. All too often, U.N.C.L.E. is viewed in Hollywood as a way to do an alternate James Bond.

To a degree that’s understandable. Sam Rolfe, who wrote the pilot and was the first-season producer, died two decades ago. Norman Felton, the long-retired executive producer, died last year at age 99. There are few people left in Hollywood who even remember the show much, much less know what made it tick.

Until evidence surfaces to the contrary, it’s clear Hollywood simply doesn’t get U.N.C.L.E.