Brad Pitt To Be The Gray Man?

Over a year ago it was announced that New Regency Pictures had hired Adam Cozad to adapt Mark Greaney's 2009 thriller novel 'The Gray Man', then earlier this year it was announced that James Gray (We Own The Night) had been hired to direct it.

Now news comes from Variety via Comingsoon.Net that Brad Pitt may well be taking on the titular role.

Brad Pitt is eyeing the lead role of Court Gentry in the upcoming Mark Greaney adaptation, The Gray Man, Variety reports.

The film will be directed by James Gray (We Own the Night) and will feature a script by Adam Cozad (the upcoming Jack Ryan reboot). Adapting the first entry in Greaney's book series, the story focuses on Gentry, a former CIA operative turned assassin-for-hire. The official description of the first book is as follows:

Court Gentry is known as The Gray Man-a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, and then fading away. And he always hits his target. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness.

Now, he is going to prove that for him, there's no gray area between killing for a living-and killing to stay alive.

The second book in the series, "On Target" was released last year with a third, "Ballistic", planned for next month.

I love the espionage genre and Pitt is a good actor who hasn't been in a spy movie since Tony Scott's underrated 'Spy Game' 10 years ago. I actually own both books but haven't read them yet, however if the plan is for this to be Pitt's Bourne franchise they better get a move on, as the actor turns 48 later this year. My only real concern is the director as this isn't his usual sort of thing.