Guy Ritchie’s upcoming action thriller In the Grey, which saw its trailer released at Cinemacon in April 2024, will feature two actors who appear to be potential replacements for Jason Statham as Ritchie’s go-to action star. Most of Guy Ritchie’s best movies fall within the action, crime, or thriller subgenres, and as a result Ritchie has worked with some of the top action stars in Hollywood. One such actor is Jason Statham, who has starred in five Guy Ritchie films in his career, including one of Ritchie’s most widely-celebrated, Snatch.

While Statham starred in a Guy Ritchie film as recently as 2023, the star-studded cast list for In the Grey does not include Statham, even in a minor role. It’s an indication that Ritchie may have moved on from using Statham consistently in his action movies, as In the Grey includes two stars who Ritchie has used in major blockbusters in the last two years. The action thriller is set to have Jake Gyllenhaal and Henry Cavill sharing the spotlight when it debuts in 2025.

Henry Cavill & Jake Gyllenhaal’s In The Grey Roles Continue Their Guy Ritchie Collaborations

Both actors have starred in Guy Ritchie blockbusters within the last two years.

Both Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal have collaborated with Guy Ritchie on at least one major blockbuster within the last two years. Gyllenhaal starred in the 2023 action drama The Covenant as Green Beret master sergeant John Kinley. While not based on a true story, The Covenant was inspired by actual events that occurred in the course of the United States’ army’s battle against the Taliban in the late 2010s. While the film largely focuses on Kinley’s bond with his Afghan interpreter Ahmed, it was still loaded with the high-quality action that Ritchie is well-known for.

Henry Cavill collaborated with Guy Ritchie on two occasions prior to In the Grey. Cavill starred in Ritchie’s 2015 spy film The Man From U.N.C.L.E. which, while a box office bomb, yielded a demand for the British actor to take on the role of James Bond. Cavill’s second collaboration with Guy Ritchie is The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, in which Cavill plays the role of real-world English special operative Gus March-Phillipps. Henry Cavill’s first WWII movie is loaded with explosive action, even though it is a heavily fictionalized version of the real Operation Postmaster in WWII.

Jason Statham’s In The Grey Absence Shows Guy Ritchie Has Replaced Him

Statham is no longer a staple of Guy Ritchie’s biggest movies.

Jason Statham was a frequent collaborator with Ritchie in the early 2000s, and starred in two of the movies that established Ritchie as one of the leading action and crime movie directors in Hollywood, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. After not working with Ritchie for more than a decade, Statham made two movies with the English director in 2021 (Wrath of Man) and 2023 (Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre), although neither made much impact with critics or at the domestic box office.

In the Grey figures to be a major blockbuster given the caliber of its cast, which also includes Eiza Gonzalez and Rosamund Pike, so seeing Jason Statham left off the cast list indicates that Guy Ritchie may no longer see him as his go-to British action star. Henry Cavill has established himself in that role for more directors than just Ritchie, and seeing Ritchie use him in yet another action movie points to him being the Statham replacement. It remains to be seen if Ritchie uses Statham in any of his movies beyond In the Grey, but either way, his omission from the 2025 action movie is conspicuous.