Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington teaming up for a movie could have become a reality if this book-to-film adaptation hadn't been scrapped.
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Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington were once tapped to star in a spy thriller that saw David Cronenberg at the helm. The project never took off as the production house MGM ran into financial problems. This was during the 2008-09 period when Cruise really wanted to make a comeback. Washington was riding the success of playing a crime lord in American Gangster, while Cronenberg had A History of Violence and Eastern Promises to his name.
The plan was to adapt Robert Ludlum's The Matarese Circle into a film. The studio also acquired Ludlum's sequel, The Matarese Countdown, with the intention of kick-starting a franchise. It was the perfect time for all three names involved but the film was eventually scrapped along with a bunch of other films when MGM went bust.
Robert Ludlum's Bourne series was an acclaimed spy thriller series starring Matt Damon and Hollywood wanted to create another franchise as popular as the Bourne series from the author's work. Matarese Circle proved to be the best option and featured not one but two complex protagonists. Set in the Cold War era, the novel's story explores Brandon Scofield of the CIA and Vasili Taleniekov of the KGB forming an unlikely partnership.
