Netflix is making a new limited series based on the thriller The 39 Steps, and the streaming company has hired Benedict Cumberbatch to star in it, according to Deadline.

　　Cumberbatch will play the lead, a man who gets mixed up in a global conspiracy. The series is inspired by the 1915 novel that was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock for a movie in 1935. The new limited series will be set in the present day.

　　Edward Berger is set to direct The 39 Steps from a script by The Revenant's Mark L. Smith. It's a re-teaming of sorts, as Berger wrote the TV show Patrick Melrose starring Cumberbatch. Berger recently directed episodes of the Bryan Cranston TV show Your Honor.

　　Deadline reported there will be six "or more" episodes, each of which will be one hour long. The plan is to film the series in Europe in 2021.

　　Cumberbatch is keeping very busy, as he recently starred in The Mauritanian and he is currently filming Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness. He's also rumored to have a role in Spider-Man: No Way Home, but he refuses to talk about that.

　　In other news about Netflix, the company just announced a deal with Sony Pictures to become the exclusive streaming home in the US for movies like Uncharted, Morbius, and the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel, starting in 2022.