Netflix is delaying production on 'The Gray Man' amid surging cases of Covid-19 in California.

The movie - starring Chris Evans, Ryan Gosling and Ana De Armas - was due to begin filming in mid-January but, according to Deadline, the start date has been pushed back due to rising Covid cases in the state.

Sets are already under construction in the Long Beach area of Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, the Netflix action thriller from 'Avengers: Endgame' directors Joe and Anthony Russo follows a former CIA operative turned freelance assassin named Court Gentry (Gosling) - also known as the Gray Man - who is hunted across the globe by his former CIA cohort Lloyd Hansen (Evans).

And the Russo brothers recently confirmed that the movie will launch a franchise.

Joe said: "What we're doing on 'Gray Man' that's different [is] … we're not gonna answer every question in the first movie. This is being conceived as a series of films, and again, potentially branching out, we could follow other characters, but we're not gonna answer every question in the movie.

"So you're gonna finish the movie, [and] have a complete story, but you're still gonna have questions about the wider universe. And I think that's one way to break the model a little bit, is to not give the audience everything in one film. Don't have a close-ended narrative. Have an open-ended narrative that's [like] a chapter in a book."