‘Spy Vs. Spy’ Film Resumes Production, With ‘Red Notice’ Director Rawson Marshall Thurber Attached

The long-awaited Spy Vs. Spy film is back on track, as Central Intelligence and Red Notice director Rawson Marshall Thurber has been hired to direct the film according to Movieweb.com.

Warner Bros confirmed that Spy Vs. Spy will be a live-action adaptation of the classic MAD Magazine comic strip, which has lingered in development hell for over a decade. Dating back to 2011, Ron Howard was originally attached to helm the project with a screenplay compiled by John Kamps and production handled by Brian Grazer and David Koepp, but the film was quickly suspended.

Although no longer directing the film, Howard will be returning as a producer alongside Brian Grazer. In addition to directing, Thurber will be writing the screenplay as well. Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn recently acknowledged in an interview that he compiled a screenplay for Spy Vs. Spy in the late 1990s, in which Austin Powers director Jay Roach assisted. Sadly, Gunn and Roach’s iteration of the film did not travel beyond the developmental stage.

Spy Vs. Spy was created by Cuban expatriate cartoonist Antonio Prohías, who wanted to satirize the political leanings of the Cold War. The espionage panels debut in MAD Magazine in 1961 and became one of the magazines most popular comics.