Spy films of the 1960′s have a reputation of getting terrible remakes. It happened with Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman in 1998′s The Avengers. It happened with Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellan in last year’s The Prisoner. But that all may change, now that Steven Soderberg has expressed interest in taking on The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Here’s the official word from THR.

Steven Soderbergh is in early talks to take over directing duties on the long-in-development film The Man From U.N.C.L.E. at Warner Bros. Scott Z. Burns, who wrote Soderbergh’s The Informant and the director’s upcoming medical thriller Contagion, is negotiating to come aboard as writer.

The show was a basic serialized spy drama from 1964 starring Robert Vaughn, who found a strong career later in life on the hit BBC show Hustle. The plan is most likely to gear the film towards the action/comedy hybrid, which is what original screenwriter Max Borenstein was tasked to do.

Now that Scott Burns is taking on the script, you can expect to see elements of both The Bourne Ultimatum and The Informant–Burns’ previous films–to arise in this script. The only question remains: will we see Matt Damon as the titular Man?

Director Steven Soderberg can pretty much do no wrong, at least in my opinion. His talent and taste make him one of the best and most interesting directors working today. Sure, he might have a few missteps occasionally and release some movies that underperform, but at least he’s never boring and you can rank even his mediocre films higher than many other director’s best. Plus, his film The Limey is one of my all-time favorites.

So, it was with great anticipation that I saw the trailer for his latest project The Informant!, which features a pudgy Matt Damon and tells the real-life story of a bi-polar whistle-blower who must come to grips with the reality that only he knows the truth. At first, before watching the trailer, the title leads you to believe its another of those movies much like The Insider or Michael Clayton. You know, a serious drama.

However, after watching the trailer I’m happy to report that this film is less serious drama and more comedy — which is probably what Soderberg was looking for after two pretty serious films like Che and The Girlfriend Experience. Serious drama or not, its still a great trailer for what I’m sure will be a great movie.

Plus, it features Matt Damon, who I think is really becoming one of the most versatile actors working today. He can do action, drama and comedy and do them all pretty well. Not very many actors can do that.

At the moment, The Informant! has a rather confusing release schedule but it looks to hit theaters sometime towards the end of the year. Check out the trailer after the jump.

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