David Cronenberg is in talks to helm his first big-budget action pic, the Robert Ludlum adaptation The Matarese Circle, for MGM. The picture, which has Denzel Washington attached to star, comes from Wanted writers Michael Brandt and Derek Haas and Ludlum’s 1979 conspiracy yarn about rival spies confronted with a criminal organization that has infiltrated the government, according to the director’s Toronto office. MGM picked up the rights earlier this year.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers, Doom), Nick Wechsler (The Time Traveler’s Wife) and Jeffrey M. Weiner (The Bourne Supremacy) of the Ludlum estate are producing.

The picture would continue the Toronto director’s recent drift towards Hollywood following his well-received crime thriller Eastern Promises and 2005’s A History of Violence. It would mark his first film since last year’s Promises. A stage adaptation of his 1986 movie The Fly recently ended its run in the U.S.