A Writer Is Recruited Into Warner’s THE MAN FROM UNCLE!!

I am – Hercules!! Max Borenstein, who scripted an as-yet-unshot Jimi Hendrix biography for Legendary pictures, has hopped aboard Warner Bros.’ big-screen “Man From UNCLE,” the one to be directed by David Dobkin (“Clay Pigeons,” “Shanghai Knights,” “Wedding Crashers,” “Fred Claus”), according to the Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog. Borenstein has had nothing big produced yet, so he’s a giant question mark to me. I’m a big fan of Dobkin’s “Clay Pigeons” and “Wedding Crashers.” The other two Dobkin efforts not so much. I’ve no firsthand knowledge of the old “UNCLE” series, largely because the swine at Warner Home Entertainment neglected to send me a copy of the complete series set when it was released about 18 months ago, but I did dig up a bunch interesting facts about the 1964-68 spy series for my DVD column that week:

* The original title for the series was “Ian Fleming’s Solo.” The show began life as the brainchild of Fleming, riding the huge crest of James Bond’s popularity following the release of “Dr. No” in 1962. * Fleming died 39 days before the show premiered on NBC. * Fleming’s original concept focused on two agents named Napoleon Solo and April Dancer. Dancer wound up not being introduced until late into the second season, played by Mary Ann Mobley. The following September, Dancer, now played by Stefanie Powers, got her own spin-off, “The Girl From UNCLE.” * Leo G. Carroll, who plays the head of UNCLE in “Man” and “Girl,” played the head of the top-secret spy organization in “North By Northwest.” His character, Waverly, is one of the many components of Alan Moore’s graphic novel espionage epic “The League of Extraordniary Gentlemen: Black Dossier.” * The organization Fleming’s Solo worked for was not called UNCLE; that name was an invention of writer-producer Sam Rolfe (“Have Gun Will Travel”). * The Russian UNCLE agent, Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum), was another Rolfe invention and originally a minor character, but grew to co-star status early in the series’ run. * Citing compensation concerns, Rolfe left the series after its first season, widely recognized as its best and most popular. * First-season episodes are easy to identify as they were the only ones shot in black and white. * William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy both guest-starred in 1.9, “The Project Strigas Affair.” * Two months before she was cast as Agent 99 in “Get Smart,” Barbara Feldon played an UNCLE agent in 1.25, “The Never-Never Affair.” * Robert Towne wrote a first-season episode, “The Dove Affair,” the same year he wrote his only “Outer Limits” episode. * Harlan Ellison wrote two 3rd-season episodes, “The Sort of Do-It-Yourself Dreadful Affair” and “The Pieces of Fate Affair.” * The United Network Command for Law Enforcement’s evil counterpart was called WASP in the pilot but later became THRUSH – an acronym never explained in the series. (A series of UNCLE novels, however, posited that THRUSH stood for Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity.) * In the 1983 reunion TV-movie, “The Return of the Man From UNCLE,” George Lazenby played an Aston Martin-driving British secret agent referred to only as “J.B.”

What say you, talkbackers? Nobody seemed too excited about the Eddie Murphy/Owen Wilson “I Spy” a few years back. Who should Dobkin recruit to play Solo and Kuryakin this time around? Find all of the Reporter’s story on the matter here.