EXCLUSIVE: After a heated auction, Universal Pictures has landed a package for an untitled drama that has David Leitch directing Ryan Gosling. Drew Pearce, who wrote for Universal the Leitch-directed hit Fast and Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw, is set to write the script. The deal is seven figures.

Guymon Casady is producing through Entertainment 360, along with Gosling producing through his company and 87North partner Kelly McCormick. Several other studios also were in the mix including Netflix, Paramount and MGM. Universal has a strong relationship with Leitch and McCormick, whose 87North is in a first-look deal there.

For Leitch, the project is extremely personal. He is the rare stuntman and stunt coordinator who transitioned to become an A-list filmmaker; his John Wick co-director Chad Stahelski is another, and not many before that dating back to Hal Needham. Leitch, who also directed Deadpool 2, has for a while been trying to find the right project in the stuntman action arena, a genre which drew momentum thanks to Brad Pitt’s Oscar-winning turn as stuntman Cliff Booth in the Quentin Tarantino-directed Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

For Gosling, he’s clearly intrigued by the stuntman genre playing one in the thriller Drive and drama Place Beyond the Pines.

Entertainment 360, the content arm of Management 360, got the ball rolling on the package by working hand in hand with with McCormick and Leitch as far as attaching Pearce, developing the movie, and then helping attach Gosling before taking it to the marketplace.

Entertainment 360’s Geoff Shaevitz and Pearce will exec produce.

Leitch and Gosling have been plenty busy, but the plan is to make this film quickly. Leitch is currently in pre-production on the Sony action pic Bullet Train starring Brad Pitt while Gosling has also signed on to star with Chris Evans in The Gray Man at Netflix with Joe and Anthony Russo directing, and he is attached to an untitled astronaut pic at MGM with Lord & Miller.

Project is being overseen by Peter Cramer and Matt Reilly for Universal.

Leitch, McCormick and 87North are repped by CAA. Gosling is repped by CAA and Pearce is repped by WME.

Ryan Gosling is tipped to star in “The Fall Guy,” a feature film adaptation of the iconic 1980s TV series, that will shoot in Sydney, Australia.

The original series, which ran 1981-1986, was created by Glen A. Larson and starred Lee Majors as a Hollywood stunt man. To make ends meet, he has a side hustle as a bounty hunter.

Australian local media has extensively reported that Gosling (“La La Land,” “First Man” and the upcoming “Barbie”) will take up the title role.

Australia’s federal government and the New South Wales state authorities will provide finance for the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group produced film. Some A$30 million ($21.1 million) will come from federal sources. The state government will kick in an additional A$14.5 million ($10.2 million).

Federal Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts, Paul Fletcher, said the production is expected to inject more than A$244 million ($171 million) into the Australian economy.

EXCLUSIVE: Universal’s adaptation of the classic TV series The Fall Guy already had star power with Ryan Gosling and David Leitch and looks to be adding more with its latest A-lister. Sources tell Deadline that Emily Blunt is set to co-star opposite Gosling in Universal Pictures and 87North’s The Fall Guy, which now has a March 1, 2024 release date.

The feature film is inspired by the 1980s series of the same name and will be directed by Leitch, who is producing with partner Kelly McCormick via their 87North. Drew Pearce, who worked with Leitch on Universal’s Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, wrote the script and serves as executive producer.

Plot details are unknown at this time

Gosling will also produce along with Guymon Casady, the latter through Entertainment 360, the content production arm of Management 360. Geoff Shaevitz and original series creator Glen A. Larson will also executive produce. EVP Production Matt Reilly will oversee the project on behalf of Universal. Production for the film is set to begin in Australia this fall.

After action-heavy roles on films like Edge of Tomorrow and the A Quiet Place franchise, this pic gives Blunt another franchise-possible action pic she can sink her teeth into. The film also marks a reunion for Blunt and Universal after she recently wrapped production on the Christopher Nolan pic Oppenheimer, which also stars Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Matt Damon. Blunt was recently seen in the Disney pic Jungle Cruise opposite Dwayne Johnson. She is currently filming the Netflix drama Pain Hustlers opposite Chris Evans.

Blunt is represented by CAA, The Artists Partnership in the UK and Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, last seen opposite Brad Pitt in action movie Bullet Train, has joined Ryan Gosling in The Fall Guy, Universal’s big-screen take on the 1980s adventure television series.

David Leitch, who directed Bullet Train, is helming the action piece, which will also star Emily Blunt.

Fall Guy was created by Glen A. Larson, the prolific TV producer whose output ranged from Battlestar Galactica to Magnum P.I., and starred Lee Majors as a Hollywood stuntman who, to make ends meets, has a side hustle as a bounty hunter. The show ran on ABC from 1981 to 1986.

The feature project is jettisoning the side hustle and keeping the name and stunts, with Gosling playing a battered and past-his-prime stuntman who finds himself back on a movie with the star he worked with long ago and who replaced him. The problem, however, is that the star is now missing.

Taylor-Johnson will play the movie star that Gosling is doubling for. Blunt is already cast as a prosthetic make-up artist that has a romantic past with our stuntman.

Drew Pearce wrote the script.

Producing are Kelly McCormick and Leitch via their 87North shingle. Gosling is also producing, as is Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady.

Pearce will executive produce alongside Geoff Shaevitz.

Executive vp of production Matt Reilly and director of development Tony Ducret are overseeing the project on behalf of Universal.

Only in theaters March 1.

He’s a stuntman, and like everyone in the stunt community, he gets blown up, shot, crashed, thrown through windows and dropped from the highest of heights, all for our entertainment. And now, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, this working-class hero has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job. What could possibly go right?

From real life stunt man and director David Leitch, the blockbuster director of Bullet Train, Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw and the producer of John Wick, Nobody and Violent Night, comes his most personal film yet. A new hilarious, hard-driving, all-star apex-action thriller and love letter to action movies and the hard-working and under-appreciated crew of people who make them: The Fall Guy.

Oscar® nominee Ryan Gosling (Barbie, La La Land, Drive) stars as Colt Seavers, a battle-scarred stuntman who, having left the business a year earlier to focus on both his physical and mental health, is drafted back into service when the star of a mega-budget studio movie—being directed by his ex, Jody Moreno, played by Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer, A Quiet Place films, Sicario)—goes missing.

While the film’s ruthless producer (Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham; Ted Lasso), maneuvers to keep the disappearance of star Tom Ryder (Golden Globe winner Aaron Taylor-Johnson; Bullet Train) a secret from the studio and the media, Colt performs the film’s most outrageous stunts while trying (with limited success) to charm his way back into Jody’s good graces. But as the mystery around the missing star deepens, Colt will find himself ensnared in a sinister, criminal plot that will push him to the edge of a fall more dangerous than any stunt.

Inspired by the hit 1980s TV series, The Fall Guy also stars Winston Duke (Black Panther franchise) and Academy Award® nominee Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once).

From a screenplay by Hobbs & Shaw screenwriter Drew Pearce, The Fall Guy is produced by Kelly McCormick (Bullet Train, Nobody, Atomic Blonde) and David Leitch for their company 87North, and by Ryan Gosling and by Guymon Casady (Game of Thrones, Steve Jobs and executive producer of the upcoming series Ripley) for Entertainment 360. The film is executive produced by Drew Pearce, Entertainment 360’s Geoff Shaevitz and the creator of the original Fall Guy television series, Glen A. Larson.