He had the "Lone Ranger" and "the social network" on his resume
Enough to put him at the front
Going back to the humor falling flat
-the uncle burning to death in the background. I think two better actors with more charisma could have made it more funny
- yeah the castle assault would have been better if they showed it. Once again it looked like they ran out of money
The Lone Ranger was a bomb and he wasn't the main star of the Social Network at all.
Cavill has Man of Steel and the upcoming Batman v Superman (for which he's been demoted to 2nd billing again - but understandably there).
Neither are huge names with box office power at all though, so might as well put Cavill first since he was the main character and who "The Man from UNCLE" is originally supposed to refer to, even though neither Solo nor Kuryakin worked for UNCLE in this film, which was rather unsatisfying to leave that right to the end and for a hoped-for sequel.
I'd speculate that it was because he was cast before Cavill when Cruise was still attached to the project, but that wouldn't quite follow. Terrence Howard was cast before Robert Downey Jr in Iron Man but he wasn't first billed, and just as well.
I would rather have had Solo already work for UNCLE, and then maybe Waverly brought Kuryakin in as his partner and he had to learn to work with him, rather than none of them even belonging to the organisation.
I feel that the script writers didn't think some things through, and neither did Guy Ritchie directing.
Also, I didn't like Kuryakin being such a brute. He was more like a henchman and killing machine, which David McCallum's version was never like that but much more cultured and refined. I think maybe Alexander Skarsgård would've been better, and also looks much more like David McCallum anyway.