‘Black Panther’s Winston Duke and ‘Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham Join ‘The Fall Guy’

Winston Duke as M'Baku in 2018's 'Black Panther.'

They may come from very different screen worlds – Winston Duke is currently best known for playing M’Baku in Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ (and is a winning part of sequel ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ which just hit theaters), while British theatre actor Hannah Waddingham broke big with TV’s ‘Ted Lasso’ – but the pair of performers are about to unite on ‘The Fall Guy’.

Stuntman-turned-expert action director David Leitch (‘Bullet Train’, ‘Deadpool 2') is behind the camera for the new movie, with Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Stephanie Hsu in front of it.

And the concept itself was born from TV series.

Originally created by prolific TV producer Glen A. Larson (whose small screen factory also cranked out shows such as ‘Buck Rogers’, ‘Battlestar Galactica’ and ‘Knight Rider’), ‘The Fall Guy’ ran between 1981 and 1986, and starred Lee Majors as Colt Seavers.

When his movie work starts to dry up, Seavers pivots to become a bounty hunter, using all the know-how he’s acquired to craft film action to track down and defeat swindlers, thieves, bikers, conmen, fugitives, and corrupt officials using his fists and his vehicle skills.

Majors starred alongside Douglas Barr and Heather Thomas as Colt’s colleagues Howie Munson and Jody Banks, who helped him out on his missions. Though the show was often a giant slab of ‘80s cheese TV, the concept clearly has legs, with at least two movies going through development

(L to R) Heather Thomas and Lee Majors in 'The Fall Guy.' Photo courtesy of IMDB.

Word of Leitch and Gosling’s take first surfaced in 2020, then referred to as ‘Unknown Stuntman Movie’ and backing via Universal.

When Taylor-Johnson was cast, we got fresh information as to the storyline for this one, which looks to be largely jettisoning the side-hustle part of the original show.

Gosling is playing the battered and past-his-prime stuntman who finds himself back on a movie with a star he worked with long ago and who replaced him. The problem, however, is that the star is now missing…

Taylor-Johnson will be the movie star that Gosling is doubling, while Blunt is a prosthetic makeup artist that has a romantic past with our hero. Hsu, on screen this year in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ will be a no-doubt harried assistant to Taylor-Johnson’s character.

Duke is on board to play the best friend of Gosling’s character, while Waddingham will bring all of her comic and dramatic chops to the role of the movie’s producer, likely none too happy that her production is going off the rails.

Given Leitch’s experience (and Gosling’s past playing stuntmen in ‘Drive’ and ‘The Place Beyond The Pines’), we’d expect a funny, action-packed movie.

With a script from ‘Iron Man 3’s Drew Pearce and cameras rolling in Australia, ‘The Fall Guy’ is taking aim at a March 1st, 2024, release.

Hannah Waddingham in “Ted Lasso” season two, now streaming on Apple TV+.