Thursday, August 5, 2010

Tradecraft: More Neo-Eurospy Fare From Luc Besson

Deadline reports that Luc Besson's EuropaCorp has another neo-Eurospy movie up its sleeve.  The company that's single-handedly - and quite successfully - revived the genre with films like Taken, From Paris With Love and the Transporter franchise will next unleash Lockout - and Guy Pearce is the latest star to attempt to jumpstart his career in the Besson Eurospy factory.  (I think he'll be great in this type of material!)  According to the trade blog, Pearce will play "a man wrongly convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S."  Good, good, sounds good... "He's offered his freedom if he can rescue the president's daughter" - yeah, we know this plot; sound Eurospy footing - "from an outer space prison taken over by violent inmates."  Wha-huh?!  That was a left turn I didn't see coming!  A cool left turn.  This still sounds like a Eurospy movie, just one of those weird ones like Agent 3S3: Operation Atlantis or... you know, the one with the aliens  (can't think of its name right now)... that goes to really strange, unexpected places... and acts completely nonchalant about it.  Deadline calls it Taken in outer space.  That sounds about right, but maybe with a bit of Escape From New York thrown in for good measure.  Besson, of course, has sci-fi cred as well as sci-spy cred thanks to The 5th Element.  Naturally, Maggie Grace will play the president's daughter.  Let's hope she's not supposed to be 17 like she was (with disasterous consequences) in the otherwise excellent Taken.  The blog notes that Grace is also attached to Taken 2.  ("Daddy, this summer I want to go to Colombia!  Can I?  Please? I'm 25 now...")  Besson co-wrote the script for Lockout with directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger. Will they be the next Pierre Morells?