Did we almost get a The Man From U.N.C.L.E. sequel?
It brokes my heart to say it, but we can't deny that the MASTERPIECE of a movie that is 2015 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was a financial flop. On a budget of $75 million, it only managed to gross $110 million worldwide. It's clear a sequel was not on the cards...
And yet, with years the movie managed to find an audience. An audience that got progressively more vocal about wanting a sequel. But probably the loudest voice was the one of (2015) Illya Kuryakin himself: Armie Hammer.
He released multiple quotes about wanting to make a sequel and talking about it with Lionel Wigram (writer and producer of the movie). Obviously, though, nothing came out of it for years...
Until the 5th of May 2020.
Out of the blue, the twitter and instagram accounts for the movie came back to life with a post celebrating Henry Cavill's birthday.
Now, that's suspicious. That's odd.
Why bother since the account had been dead for 5 years? As you can see, before that, their last twitter post had been a retweet (about someone speaking the truth!) from 2015. What was this really about?
The instagram account then posted about Black Lives Matter on May 31.
The accounts went dormant again until August 28 of the same year. This time, with a post celebrating Armie Hammer's birthday.
On November 2020, Armie Hammer posted this to his instagram stories:
(credit to: @el3anorrigbyworld)
Sure, like I said before, Armie multiple times mentioned the fact that he and Wigram would talk about a sequel... But this direct call to action? Considering that the official accounts had started posting again, is it possible that something was finally happening behind the scenes?
Also, the scene from the movie The Gentlemen (2019) directed by Guy Ritchie (the man behind TMFU as well) where a character says that the movie he's working on "Needs a sequel" with a The Man From U.N.C.L.E. poster behind him, took a slightly different connotation after all this.
Maybe after 5 years, we were going to get something more than "It might happen one day!". Maybe there were some chances Warner Brothers wanted to bet on a sequel? Could it finally go into production?
Well, we didn't have to wait long to find out an answer to this because in January 2021 this happened:
(Note: as you can see this article is from March 2021. This image is just for context. The first allegations against him started to come out in January 2021)
If at the end of 2020, the chances of a sequel might have risen up to 5%, after this they precipitated back to 0% again. A sequel for this itineration or The Man From U.N.C.L.E. simply wasn't meant to be.
On May 5th 2021 the official accounts, shared another post to celebrate Henry's birthday. But since then, the accounts have gone radio silent again.
As I'm writing this (22/01/2025) the 10th anniversary of the movie (August 14, 2015) is approaching us. I'm left wondering, will the accounts come back for one last post? I highly doubt it. For one reason: Armie Hammer. He was once the movie's stronger supporter, but now, he has become the most toxic thing about it.
So, did we almost get a The Man From U.N.C.L.E. sequel?
Eh. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Even with these "receipts" I doubt it. However, I still find it curious that the official accounts started posting again so randomly. What was the point? We'll probably never find out... But I just can't stop thinking about it.
However, I'm sure that, eventually, we'll get something else TMFU-related. For best or for worst, Hollywood loves a good remake/reboot.
