According to a report from Collider, Central Intelligence director Rawson Marshall Thurber has signed on to direct a live-action adaptation of the Mad Magazine comic strip Spy vs. Spy for Warner Bros. and Ron Howard and Brian Glazer’s Imagine Entertainment.
Launching back in 1961 and created by Cuban cartoonist Antonio Prohias as a parody of Cold War ideologies, Spy vs. Spy revolves around two rival agents (White Spy and Black Spy) who are caught in a perpetual war and use a variety of weapons and booby traps to inflict harm upon each other. The strip spawned a number of video game adaptations, as well as an animated skit in Cartoon Network’s Mad series which ran from 2010 to 2013.
Imagine Entertainment have spent close to a decade looking to get the movie off the ground, initially as a directing vehicle for Howard, with the likes of David Koepp and John Kamps working on the script. Should Thurber close his deal, it is expected that he’ll also take his own pass on the script.
Thurber’s directing credits include DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story and We’re the Millers, while his 2016 film Central Intelligence led to him reteaming with Dwayne Johnson on both 2018’s Skyscraper and the upcoming action comedy thriller Red Notice, which was midway through production before the global health crisis forced a shutdown.
