The Denzel Washington & Tom Cruise Spy Movie We Never Got To See

It might be tempting to encapsulate David Cronenberg's oeuvre in various shades of body horror (we recently ranked his version of "The Fly" as the best body horror movie ever), but the director also has a serious knack for crafting dark, violent stories that pack a punch. The Viggo Mortensen-led "Eastern Promises" and " A History of Violence" are key examples here, and the mainstream success of these films helped set up the perfect circumstances for Cronenberg to direct a tense espionage thriller based on a bestselling trilogy of novels. After MGM and Relativity Media acquired the rights to Robert Ludlum's "The Matarese Circle" in 2008, Cronenberg was set to direct an adaptation with two mega-popular A-listers attached to play the leads: Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise. The line-up felt too good to be true even when the film was scheduled to be released in 2013, but the project unfortunately fell through when MGM filed for bankruptcy the same year.

Ludlum is best known for his Jason Bourne novel series, which has inspired a five-film franchise and television spin-off series so far (here's the best order to watch all the "Bourne" projects), and the initial "Bourne" trilogy established genre-altering stylistic choices that heavily influenced action movies well into the 2010s. Considering the long-standing success of a Ludlum adaptation, the decision to cast two bonafide stars in a gritty spy thriller helmed by a director who intimately understands what makes a good story tick was a smart choice. Moreover, "The Matarese Circle" book was different than the "Bourne" novels; its plot was not only more convoluted but more grounded, with real-life events actively re-contextualizing our understanding of the lead characters, Soviet KGB officer Vasili Taleniekov and American Consular Operations operative Brandon Scofield.

Let's look closer at Ludlum's "The Matarese Circle" and the adaptation that could have been.

As MGM was gearing toward actualizing the Ludlum adaptation, hot screenwriters Michael Brandt and Derek Haas — who had worked together in 2008's "Wanted" — were hired to write the script, while Washington and Cruise were expected to play Scofield and Talaniekov, respectively. In 2011, Cronenberg confirmed his initial involvement and explained the reasons behind the project falling apart (via Showbiz 411):

"I was working on 'The Matarese Circle,' the novel by Robert Ludlum, which was going to star Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise before MGM went belly up. So I don't think that's going to happen now. Tom still likes the idea, though."

This is a bummer, as the Washington-Cruise combination could have potentially been explosive on the big screen, since both actors have commanding presences in ways that are different yet complementary. Washington brings a practiced theatricality and warmth to every role he takes on, while Cruise embraces sharpened gusto and intensity no matter what kind of character he is expected to play. Of course, there's also the Cronenberg factor, which makes for beautifully strange stories that can be earnest when the premise demands, and it would have been fascinating to see how the director employed his signature ability to delve beneath the surface in a thriller like this.

In terms of the narrative, "The Matarese Circle" follows an oft-overdone trope where two people belonging to opposing forces need to team up together to take down a threat more immediate and dangerous than their perceived differences. Here, the threat in question is a mysterious group known as the Matarese, who wish to destroy and dominate the world because they have the means to do so. Ludlum filters most of the novel through Scofield and Talaniekov's perspectives, where they compile their intel on the elusive group and realize that the Matarese aim to infiltrate and topple all intelligence agencies.

Although Ludlum's novel isn't the most thorough or convincing, it is lengthy and twisty enough to make for a competent page-turner. Hopefully, we will be gifted with a seriously gritty, entertaining adaptation of "The Matarese Circle" someday.