The film is an adaptation of the Robert Ludlum thriller scripted by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (Wanted). In the film Cruise would go head-to-head with Washington as two bitter enemy spies who, after spending two decades trying to kill one another, find themselves in the crosshairs of the Matarese, a powerful group at the root of a conspiracy. The script contemporizes Ludlum's original Cold War premise.