Henry Cavill and Eiza González have signed up to lead the new World War II film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare for Guy Ritchie, according to a report by Deadline. Jerry Bruckheimer will produce the film, from a script by Ritchie and Arash Amel, based on the popular book of the same name, written by war correspondent and military historian Damien Lewis.
The film is said to be inspired by real events, and will chart the UK prime minister Winston Churchill and James Bond author Ian Fleming as they start up their secret WWII combat organization. The clandestine brigade's unorthodox fighting methods were believed to introduce new fighting techniques to take on the Nazis, helping to change the course of the war and was seen as a precursor to the modern day Black Ops.
Originally, the project was in development via Paramount thanks to Bruckheimer's first look deal with the studio but they have chosen not to distribute the film. Deadline report that this will be the project with the biggest budget project for sale at the American Film Market taking place next week.
Cavill, whose previous credits include Mission: Impossible - Fallout, reunites with Ritchie after their work together on 2015's The Man from U.N.C.L.E. His character is said to be the leader of the organization. He currently stars in the Netflix series The Witcher and is best known for his role as Clark Kent/Superman in the DC Extended Universe films Man of Steel, Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League. He recently announced he was returning to the role of the Last Son of Krypton, having made a stunning appearance in the recent DC movie Black Adam, where he teased a showdown with the titular character, played by Dwayne Johnson.
González will play a military sniper who has extraordinary spycraft abilities. She will next been seen in Extrapolations for Apple TV+ and the Netflix sci-fi picture The Three Body Problem. She was last seen in Michael Bay's action thriller Ambulance earlier this year, as a paramedic who is taken hostage.
Ritchie has most recently directed Wrath of Man starring Jason Statham, and also directed Aladdin for Disney. He is perhaps best known as being the director of the two Sherlock Holmes films, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. In a neat twist of fate, Cavill also plays the famed detective in Netflix's Enola Holmes series.
The movie is set to begin filming in January 2023, in Turkey.