Gary Oldman On Becoming Smiley

While we're on the subject of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy today (thanks to the awesome teaser trailer that just debuted), Gary Oldman recently shared some insights with The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye about his upcoming performance as George Smiley in Tomas Alfredson's eagerly anticipated John Le Carré adaptation. "I’ve played so many of these big extrovert characters," he told the columnist, admitting it was the prospect of doing "something that is so still, so quiet" that attracted him to the part of the quiet, pudgy, physically unremarkable yet brilliant, and, occasionally, ruthless spymaster.

According to Bamigboye, "Oldman added Alfredson was very quiet with the camera, taking an almost voyeuristic approach by shooting with long lenses. ‘It was as if he was eavesdropping, like a peeping Tom, which is what you sort of want for a spy film.'" I like the sound of that! And you can kind of get a sense of that approach from the trailer.

Like Alec Guinness, who played the role before him in a terrific BBC miniseries adaptation in 1979, Oldman had lunch with Le Carré himself (whose real name is David Cornwell) and borrowed a few of his mannerisms. (If audiences pick up on these mannerisms, they may attribute them to Guinness rather than Cornwell.) He also "put on a bit of a tummy" to properly portray Smiley, a man who can out-think top-level Soviet strategists and bring down traitors in the government, but can't keep his diet or his wife. "I wanted to be suitably middle-aged, so I ate a lot of treacle sponge and custard on the set and built up a little bit of a middle-aged paunch. I called it eating for George."

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier... Trailer!

This is the big one, 007! This is what we've been waiting for! (And yes, thank you, I'm fully aware of the irony of making a James Bond reference in a Le Carré story.) The Guardian has posted the first teaser trailer for Tomas Alfredson's upcoming spy movie Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, starring Gary Oldman and based on the seminal John Le Carré book which, for my money, is a very strong contender for the best spy novel ever written. The fact that we're seeing this trailer the same week as our first glimpse at the Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol trailer not only delivers spy fans an abundance of riches; it also highlights the wide spectrum of story that all fit within the overall spy genre. M:I-GP is pure action stuffed to the brim with stunts, whereas TTSS is all intrigue and atmosphere (though they do manage to stick in a shot from just about every scene involving a gun, which is appropriate for a teaser!).

As expected (but it still comes as a relief), I love this trailer.  I love the tone, I love the music, I love the hints we get of the performances, I love the cinematography, I love the art direction, I love the Seventies fashions and hairstyles; I love pretty much everything about it.  This is exactly what a spy movie of this sort should look like! I can't wait. Please note, the release date listed at the end is the UK release date. As previously reported, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy will be released in America by Focus Features on November 18.

Tradecraft: Anton Corbijn to Direct Le Carré's A Most Wanted Man

A Hamburg-set Le Carré thriller from the director of The American?  Yes, please!  According to The Hollywood Reporter, Anton Corbijn will helm a film adapted by Andrew Bovell (who penned the 2010 movie version of Edge of Darkness for Martin Campbell) from John Le Carré's 2008 novel A Most Wanted Man. The book follows a Chechen Muslim named Issa who illegally immigrates to Hamburg and may be a terrorist. He's at the center of an elaborate plot involving the intelligence agencies of multiple countries who should be allies but can't play nice together and an everyman banker named Tommy Brue who's caught in the middle. I haven't read that one and I'm usually wary of movies revolving around extraordinary rendition (I know, I know; it's an important issue to discuss, but frankly I tend to find it boring), but if anyone can make that subject compelling it's Le Carré. (This trailer for the book certainly makes it appear so!) But they had me at spies in Hamburg anyway; I don't need to know more.  I really enjoyed Corbijn's meditative assassin movie The American (read my review here), though I'll freely admit that while it was beautiful to behold, it lacked a truly compelling plot.  That's something that Le Carré excells at, so this should be a good match.  A Most Wanted Man will lens this winter, primarily in Hamburg.  If nothing else, The American certainly proved that Corbijn shoots European cities and towns like nobody else!

Another Look at the Spies of X-Men: First Class

In my review of the latest X-Men movie, I looked at it (quite naturally) from a spy point of view.  Here's another interesting review that approaches the film from that perspective as well at the blog Overthinking It.  The well-written article by John Perich offers a fascinating argument for Matthew Vaughn's film as an examination of the dichotemy of the Sixties spy hero combining the worlds of Ian Fleming, Len Deighton and John Le Carré. Personally, I think I'd equate Xavier more with Smiley than Harry Palmer, but overall I agree with all of his points!

Tradecraft: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Gets a U.S. Release Date

There may not be a Bond movie coming out this fall (doesn't that throw off your internal clock? My body knows instinctually that we're due for one!), but that doesn't mean that spy fans won't have anything to look forward to on what would have probably been its release date.  Variety reports that Universal will release Tomas Alfredson's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in the United States through its Focus Features specialty division on November 18, nabbing the traditional 007 weekend for John le Carré's anti-Bond hero, George Smiley.  That date comes at the heart of what's known as "Awards Season," when studios schedule movies they believe likely to earn Oscar nominations for maximum exposure to Academy voters with short memories.  It's also what the trade calls a "shrewd counterprogramming move," as that date puts the spy film up against Summit's surefire blockbuster freight train The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1.  I'm guessing there won't be too much crossover appeal between the two films, so they should be able to coexist peacefully.  The move also puts Tinker, Tailor almost exactly one month before Paramount's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, the 2012 spy movie I'm looking forward to second most.  It should be a good holiday season for spy fans!  As previously reported, the UK will get to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy nearly two months earlier. 

Click here to see recently released images from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Smiley Re-Jacketed

In George Smiley's first appearance in Call For the Dead, John le Carré described his most famous creation in a rather unflattering manner: "Short, fat, and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad."  Yet now, thanks to artist Matt Taylor, Smiley is undergoing an uncharacteristically stylish upgrade.  In a move that surprised the book industry, le Carré defected from long-term publisher Hodder and Soughton to Penguin in 2009. Part of the new publisher's appeal to the author was said to be the chance to occupy the same roster as his literary idols, Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad, both of whose catalogs are very handsomely maintained by Penguin. Ironically, another spy author whose company the move puts him in is Ian Fleming. "I dislike Bond. I'm not sure that Bond is a spy. I think that it's a great mistake if one's talking about espionage literature to include Bond in this category at all," le Carré told an interviewer in 1966... though he later conceded that his reactive statement may have been a tad harsh. Penguin have been the stewards of Fleming's Bond books for the last decade now, and expertly shepherded them through a succession of classy reissues on both sides of the pond. No matter how le Carré feels about Fleming, one can't help speculate that 007's treatment in the hands of Penguin may also have played a part in his decision to make the publisher his new home.

Now, in anticipation of the new film version of le Carré's seminal work, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (see today's earlier post), Penguin have unveiled a series of Smiley reissues just as striking as their Bond covers. On June 7 they'll release the first two books in the "Karla Trilogy" (Tinker, Tailor, which earns a "Soon to be a major motion picture" banner, and The Honourable Schoolboy) with colorful new covers by Taylor, who also provided artwork for the recent paperback edition of le Carré's latest novel, Our Kind of Traitor. The third volume, Smiley's People, follows on June 28. After that, the reissues continue with non-Smiley works The Little Drummer Girl (the same day as Smiley's People), A Perfect Spy and The Naive and Sentimental Lover (both in late July).

These three novels are not the only ones featuring George Smiley, but they are the best and the most substantial—and they form the core not only of le Carré's body of work, but of the Espionage Canon as a whole. This trilogy is absolutely essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in the spy genre. (I'm praying that the new Tinker, Tailor movie will prove successful enough to merit film versions of all three novels; I'd love to see The Honourable Schoolboy filmed!) All three books will also be issued as eBooks the same day. Unfortunately, there's no way of telling from Penguin's website if the author's introductions from the Scribner editions (penned in the 1990s) will be included in the new reissues. I suppose it's possible that those might belong to the old publisher like special features on a Criterion DVD that fail to appear on a subsequent studio version. I do hope they're included, because I've found all of them to be insightful supplements to the novels. For constant coverage on all things Smiley, I recommend the relatively new website SmileyWatch (linked on the right of this blog), who first reported on Tinker, Tailor's new cover back in April.

New Images Revealed From Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Remake

The Playlist points the way to the Danish website Movie Pilot, which debuts three new images from Tomas Alfredson's upcoming big screen adaptation of the best spy novel ever, John Le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Among them is our first look at recent Oscar-winner Colin Firth as the quintessential MI6 operative Bill Haydon, and he looks suitably dapper. There's also our first official look at Tom Hardy as scalp hunter Ricky Tarr (following the unofficial set pictures from last winter) and a new photo of Gary Oldman as spymaster George Smiley. Additionally, the film's official Facebook page has gone live, giving us an expanded look at that first official image of Oldman that we first glimpsed last fall.  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was previously filmed (quite masterfully) as a BBC miniseries starring the incomparable Alec Guinness.  Penguin is reissuing the novel (along with the other two books comprising the so-called "Karla Trilogy") this June with a striking new cover just in time for the film, which is set to kick off the Venice Film Festival before a UK bow in September and an Oscar-timed American release later in the fall. I'm looking forward to a lot of movies coming out later this year (including Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Johnny English Reborn and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), but this one is far and away the one I'm most excited about!

John Le Carré Gives His Blessing To Official Biography

John Le Carré has given his blessing to the first ever authorized biography of the acclaimed spy author and former spy.  The Daily Telegraph reports that biographer Adam Sisman will be given full access to le Carré’s personal archive for a book expected to be published in 2014 to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. It's notable that the notoriously reclusive Le Carré, whose real name is David Cornwell, is not only allowing such a book, but cooperating, because two decades ago he waged a fierce legal campaign to prevent such a work from being published.  Journalist Graham Lord promised what the newspaper calls "salacious details about a famous author’s personal life" and "a thrilling romp through his mistresses, wives, loves and losses – and his work for the secret service." Le Carré successfully blocked the book's publication, but now he'll apparently allow such matters to be discussed. Novelist Robert Harris (who penned The Ghost, which was turned into the Pierce Brosnan movie The Ghost Writer) was previously tapped to pen Le Carré's official chronicle under the condition that he not publish until after the author's death, but confessed to The Telegraph that "I got distracted by writing my own novels, so I am happy for Adam to write [Le Carré's biography]. I might do a more impressionistic portrait, but I have a legal agreement with David that anything I know is not to be divulged before his death."

Tradecraft: Universal Picks Up Tinker, Tailor For U.S. Distribution

Deadline reports that Universal has acquired Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson's new adaptation of the John Le Carré spy classic, for distribution in the United States. The film was produced by SudioCanal and Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner's UK company Working Title, who have a long history with Universal, but the studio initially chose not to act on its first look deal.  Instead, when the movie got hot thanks to a cast including Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy and freshly-minted Best Actor Oscar winner Colin Firth, and The Weinstein Company and Summit got into a bidding war, Universal came back into the picture and snapped it up.  According to the trade blog, Universal is eyeing a November or December release, and "word is the film’s a tour de force for Oldman." That frame would position the actor perfectly for an Oscar campaign of his own next year. It will also put it in direct competition at the box office with the other 2011 spy movie I'm most looking forward to, Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.  StudioCanal will release the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in the UK and much of Europe, and is still shopping the rights for the rest of the world. I'm just happy to know that the film's American distribution is locked down now! I would have hated for it to be one of those iffy ones that doesn't get a proper release here.

First Look at Benedict Cumberbatch in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Luckily for spy fans, the British paparazzi have been avidly snapping away as film rolls on Tomas Alfredson's new film adaptation of  John Le Carré's classic Cold War spy tale Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  Hot on the heels of those behind-the-scenes pictures revealing Tom Hardy's Seventies look as scalphunter Ricki Tarr, The Daily Mail gives us our first glimpse at Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch as Peter Guillam, right-hand man to frumpy-but-brilliant spymaster George Smiley (Gary Oldman).  I love it!  With his straightened hair dyed blond (or is it a wig?), he looks very Seventies (given the movie's Cold War period setting) and very much like I picture Guillam.  (Well, except for the puffy outer coat and the banana, but I assume those will disappear when the cameras roll.) The tabloid also provides our first look at Roger Lloyd-Pack as (presumably) Control.  Like Oldman, he looks a lot like his counterpart in the 1979 BBC miniseries. 

In a possible bit of casting news on this film, the IMDb weirdly lists a Russian, Katrina Vasilieva, as playing the very, very English Anne Smiley, philandering wife of Oldman's protagonist. Hm.

New Spy DVDs Media Out This Week

I don't think there are any new spy DVDs out this week, and there's only one new spy Blu-ray–one that's already been available on DVD for a while.  But whatever format you watch it on, it's an undeniable classic! The Criterion release of Jean-Pierre Melville's 1969 wartime spy classic Army of Shadows, drawn from the director's own real-life experiences in the French resistance, gets the Blu-ray treatment this week with all the same excellent special features as the DVD edition, including an engrossing commentary with film historian Ginette Vincendeau, new interviews withe the editor and cinematographer, and behind-the-scenes material culled from French TV at the time of the film's production. Retail is a steep $39.99, but of course you can find it for cheaper than that. The new Blu-ray is actually cheaper on Amazon right now than the DVD, at just $27.99.

Also out today from AudioGO Ltd., is a cool-looking box set collection of all of BBC Radio 4's Smiley radio dramas first broadcast in 2009, The Collected George Smiley Radio Dramas: Eight BBC Full-Cast Productions Starring Simon Russell Beale.  The well-received radioplays star Simon Russell Beale (who's supposedly up for a role in the next Bond movie) as John Le Carré's most famous literary creation, unassuming spymaster George Smiley.  The box set includes adaptations of every single novel the character appears in–even when he's not the lead: "Call For the Dead," "A Murder of Quality," "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold," "The Looking Glass War," the epic "Karla Trilogy" including "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (possibly my favorite spy novel of all time, of which I'm always keen to see/hear a new adaptation), "The Honourable Schoolboy" and "Smiley's People," and the epilogue to Smiley's career, "The Secret Pilgrim."  All that adds up to 2.8 pounds and over 20 hours of grim and gritty espionage and intrigue!  Sounds worth the $139.95 list price, though Amazon currently has it at a substantial discount for just $88.17.

First Look At Tom Hardy In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Dark Horizons points the way to Turkish website HT Galeri for our first glimpses (fifteen of them, in fact!) of Tom Hardy and Svetlana Khodchenkova as British agent Ricki Tarr and Russian spy Irina (repectively) in Tomas Alfredson's new film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  The pictures also confirm the film's  1970s period setting, as appropriate cars line the streets.  The fact that they were snapped in Istanbul may sound some alarm bells among fans of John Le Carré's seminal novel, as it signals that the location of Tarr's encounter with Irina has once again been moved from Hong Kong to Europe, just as it was in the 1979 Alec Guinness miniseries.  (Lisbon in that version.)  This doesn't really alter the story in any significant way, but I always liked how the Far East location 1) showed how the Cold War was played out all over the globe, and not just in Europe, and 2) nicely dovetailed into the second novel in the Karla trilogy, The Honourable Schoolboy (which didn't get filmed by the BBC, but which I really, really hope makes it to the screen this time around!) with mention of station chief Tufty Thessinger.  Oh well.  Istanbul is still a great spy location in its own right (lots of precedent for that!) and Thessinger, at least, seems to remain intact, as these pictures also appear to show Christian McKay (in suitable 70s garb) playing the role.  Hardy sports a 70s wig to rival Hywell Bennett's actual hair in the miniseries, and also a number of odd tattoos.  (Most of the photos depict him in a shirtless state.)  For a previous look at star Gary Oldman as spymaster George Smiley, go here.

Rachel Weisz, Bill Nighy, Michael Gambon Join David Hare Spy Movie

Possibly irked at being left out of the new film remake of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (which seems to star all of their peers), Bill Nighy and Michael Gambon have decided to make a high-brow spy movie of their own.  The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye reports that acclaimed playwright David Hare ("The Hours") has decided to try his hand at penning a spy movie.  And he's recruited first-rate actors to star in it.  Besides the great Nighy and Gambon (who once auditioned for the role of James Bond back in the Seventies), Oscar nominees (and former co-stars in John Le Carré's The Constant Gardener) Rachel Weisz and Ralf Fiennes will star in Hare's Page 8, which the writer will also direct.  According to the tabloid, "Bill Nighy will play an MI5 ­operative who believes [Weisz's] character could represent a threat to him. Michael Gambon will play the director general of the Security Service. Judy Davis, the celebrated ­Australian actress who rarely works outside her homeland, will also be in the film in an as yet unspecified role."  What's not totally clear from the article is whether this will be a theatrical film or one made for UK television.  BBC Films is producing (along with NBC Universal and Harry Potter mogul David Heyman), but BBC Films doesn't always mean TV; they've had plenty of theatrical releases.  I get the impression this is one of those. There's no question that the fantastic cast is film-caliber!

Bamigboye reveals some other intriguing details about Hare.  Apparently, the playwright (who previously penned the early Eighties Judi Dench spy film Saigon: Year of the Cat) is a spy fan, and wrote Page 8 basically because he saw a gap in bigscreen espionage entertainment and wanted to enhance his his own "pleasurable cinema-going." (He must have written it last year when there was a noticeable dearth of such movies in the theaters, as there've been a load of them this year.  But you can never have too many!)  Specifically, Hare misses James Bond (and who doesn't?), but it sounds like his own movie will, unsurprisingly, occupy more Le Carré territory.  And it just so happens that Hare and Le Carré are neighbors!  According to Bamigboye, "Hare revealed that Le Carré offered to read the Page 8 script, telling Hare: ‘I promise to be withering.’ Hare added: ‘That put me in my place. I wouldn’t dare give the screenplay to Le Carré. I’d be absolutely terrified to show him what I’ve come up with.’" Well, I, for one, am very curious to see what he's come up with!

First Photograph Of Gary Oldman As Smiley

The Daily Mail has revealed what I think is the first photo we've seen of Gary Oldman in character as John Le Carré's famous spycatcher George Smiley.  It's accompanied by a very interesting interview with Oldman by Baz Bamigboye.  The whole thing, in which Oldman discusses banishing the ghost of Alec Guinness (whom he's always admired), is well worth reading, but here are some choice excerpts.  On the subject of filling famous shoes, the actor is pragmatic.  He knows his Smiley history, and reminds us that there have been more Smileys than just Guinness. "I'm 52," Oldman tells Bamigboye. "Let's say I'm playing 55. There have been many Smileys, so he could be all things. I know in the book he's described as a short fat man, but he can be Denholm Elliott, he can be Alec Guinness, he can be James Mason - and he can be Gary Oldman, I think." (The photo clearly looks closest to Guinness, however.  Honestly, I'm surprised they gave him the same hair!) Oldman also describes how he selected Smiley's eyewear at a vintage glasses store in Pasadena.  "Glasses are funny things," he muses. "For Smiley, they're iconic. It's like the Aston Martin or the Martini, shaken not stirred." That comparison made me smile.  I like Oldman's attitude, and I like that he's got a sense of humor about it all as well as a deep respect for his famous forebear.  Like James Bond, George Smiley is a character open to many interpretations, and I get the idea that Gary Oldman will be a good one. 

The article also reveals some cast members I hadn't heard mentioned before.  Besides the previously announced Colin Firth, Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy, Bamigboye also mentions Kathy Burke, Laura Carmichael, Stephen Graham, David Dencik and John Hurt.  I assume Hurt will be playing Control, which is pretty ideal casting. Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) directs this new feature film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  Guinness starred in the 1979 BBC miniseries.

Head on over to The Daily Mail to read all of Oldman's thoughts on his latest role.

New Spy Books Out This Week: John Le Carré's Our Kind of Traitor

I've been seriously lacking in my coverage of spy novels lately (particularly in failing to cover the UK release of Jeremy Duns' new novel, Free Country after such a stellar debut; I'll be rectifying that soon), but I have to mention when the foremost living practioner of the genre releases a new book. John Le Carré latest novel, Our Kind of Traitor, hits American shelves today. (It came out in Britain a few weeks ago.) Our Kind of Traitor tells the story of a vacationing couple caught up in a global war of wits between an murderous Russian gangster/arms dealer and various unscrupulous factions within the British Secret Service.  As previously reported, a film version is already in the works. 

October is a huge month for spy novels in the US.  On the 26th, Greg Rucka's eagerly anticipated new Queen & Country novel, The Last Run, will be released, and the same day sees (at last!) the long-awaited American publication of Jon Stock's Dead Spy Running.

Our Kind of Traitor, published by Viking, retails for $27.95 but can currently be had for the bargain price of $14.98 from Amazon.

More Tinker Tailor Spies Cast

Empire Online reports (via Dark Horizons) that Mark Strong and Svetlana Khodchenkova have joined the cast of Tomas Alfredson's feature film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  Strong (Syriana, Body of Lies and Holywood's go-to Brit villain of the moment) will play British agent Jim Prideaux, whose disasterous mission behind the Iron Curtain, Operation Testify, sets the story's events in motion (though not chronologically), and Khodchenkova, a prolific Russian actress and Playboy cover model, will play Irina, the Russian spy Ricky Tarr (Tom Hardy) meets in Hong Kong whose information proves equally vital to the plot.  As previously reported, Gary Oldman stars as George Smiley, Benedict Cumberbatch plays his Watson, Peter Guillam, and Jared Harris, Colin Firth and Ciaran Hinds round out the cast (to date, anyway) of this John Le Carré adaptation.  Ralf Fiennes and David Thewlis were at one point linked with the project, though their names haven't been mentioned officially.  Empire also gets reassurance from producer Tim Bevan that this new version of the great spy novel (first filmed for the BBC as a miniseries starring Alec Guinness in 1979) will indeed retain its Cold War period setting.  Le Carré himself will be on set as a consultant.

Tinker Tailor Cast Shapes Up

More details are being revealed (or at least rumored) about who's playing who in Tomas Alfredson's new feature version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  Dark Horizons points the way to a story in The Daily Mail alleging that Inception's Tom Hardy has replaced Inglourious Basterds' Michael Fassbender... and reveals the role that he'll be playing to be that of rogue "scalphunter" (Le Carré slang for agents who handle dirtier jobs, like murder or kidnapping) Ricky Tarr.  Makes sense, as Tarr's pretty much the only other young character in the cast besides Peter Guillam, who we know is being played by Benedict Cumberbatch.  Besides Gary Oldman, who's confirmed to play the unassuming spymaster George Smiley, the tabloid states that the cast will be rounded out by Ciaran Hinds (Munich), Jared Harris (Mad Men) and Colin Firth.  That's the first I've heard of Hinds or Harris being involved, but the list omits previously rumored Ralf Fiennes and David Thewlis.  Does that mean they're out? And who are the ones who are in playing? I'm dying to know. Hopefully, all will be clear soon, as the newspaper reports that filming is set to begin in just a few weeks.

Tradecraft: Still More Le Carré Adaptations On The Horizon

Wow, this blog has become the 24-hour John Le Carré movie news site all of a sudden!  Well, that's not just me; it's only because the Hollywood trades are spreading a lot of Le Carré news these days.  Even in his late seventies, the author is a deservedly hot property.  This Deadline story about a non-Le Carré script pickup may explain why.  The author's son, Stephen Cornwell (Le Carré's real name is David Cornwell) has recently teamed up with Oliver Butcher to form a production company called White Hare Films, and according to the trade blog, "part of the company's mandate is to package his father's works into movies. That includes an adaptation of A Most Wanted Man, as well as the upcoming Our Kind of Traitor, the latter of which is being adapted by Hossein Amini."  Amini (The Four Feathers) is making quite a name for himself as a spy writer.  Besides the upcoming Shanghai (a period spy thriller starring John Cusack, Chow Yun Fat and Franka Potente), he's also written the script for the next Jack Ryan movie we've been hearing so much about, Moscow.  (Perhaps it's not too late for Le Carré to change the title of his upcoming novel from Our Kind of Traitor to the name of some city?)  Our Kind of Traitor, which comes out on October 12, tells the story of a vacationing couple caught up in a global war of wits between the Russian mafia and various unscrupulous factions within the British Secret Service.  A Most Wanted Man (another one I haven't read, from 2008) examines the friction that still exists between "friendly" intelligence services in the modern-day context of the Global War on Terror.

The main point of Deadline's story, however, is not about the father, but the son, who's gaining quite a reputation as a writer in his own right.  His script with Butcher, Message From the King, has just been acquired by FilmNation.  The pair also penned the upcoming Liam Neeson thriller Unknown White Male.

Tradecraft: Purvis And Wade Pen New International Thriller, Le Carré Adaptation

Variety reports that James Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have contributed to every 007 script since The World Is Not Enough, have signed a deal to develop an "untitled international action thriller" with Parkes MacDonald/Imagenation.  (That's producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald teamed up with Abu Dhabi financer Imagenation.)  The project is based on a concept by Parkes and Michael Lieber, and "centers on an American anthropologist who travels back to the Sahara to come to the assistance of one of his former research subjects - a young man who has been accused of a terrorist attack." According to the trade, "Story will be set amongst the Taureg tribes of the Sahara West Africa, a nomadic people whose uranium rich land has become a focal point for both energy companies and terrorist states." 

The story also mentions that Purvis and Wade, like their Bond 23 co-writer, Peter Morgan, have adapted a Le Carré novel, in their case The Mission Song.  I had actually reported on this before, but forgotten about it! Anyway, a little digging reveals that Susanna White (who most recently made, um, Nanny McPhee Returns, but has also helmed episodes of critically acclaimed TV series like Generation: Kill and Bleak House) is attached to direct.  I haven't read The Mission Song, but I always welcome more Le Carré adaptations.  The story centers on a Congolese translator of mixed Congolese/Irish parentage and British citizenship who works part time for an MI6 evesdropping operation known as "the Chat Room" and becomes embroiled in a conspiracy involving governments, arms dealers, bankers and warlords.  According to The Daily Mail, it's set to start shooting next spring, but of course there's always a huge grain of salt to be taken where British tabloids are concerned.

Sherlock Holmes Assists George Smiley

One of fiction's greatest minds will soon assist another.  According to Dark Horizons, the (London) Sunday Times has revealed that Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays the titular detective on the BBC's new modern day-set Sherlock (co-created by the great Mark Gatiss) will play George Smiley's right-hand man Peter Guillam in the new feature adaptation of John Le Carré's spy classic Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  As previously reported, Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, Bond 23) has penned the script and Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) will direct; Gary Oldman plays the latest screen incarnation of Le Carré's peerless spymaster George Smiley.  I'm not that familiar with Cumberbatch's work yet, but Sherlock is my most anticipated TV show of the year... and the wait for it to come to PBS in America this fall after a successful summer run in England is killing me!  I'm a tad surprised by this news, though, as I'd pegged Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) for that role.  Now I'm not sure who he'll be.  Fassbender, Ralf Fiennes, David Thewlis and Colin Firth have all previously been connected with the film, though none have been confirmed.  My guess would be that Firth will play Hayden, Fiennes Estherhase, and Thewlis Alleline (which I guess would leave Fassbender as Bland, which seems kind of odd; he's too young to be Prideaux... oh, maybe he's Ricky Tarr?), but all of those actors are chameleon enough that each of them could pretty much play any of those guys.  (Fiennes may well turn out to be Hayden; it's a toss-up as to whether he or Firth more quintessentially embodies that particular breed of upper class English gentleman.) Anyway, those are pure speculation; I'll be very curious to see how it all pans out.  This film remains foremost among upcoming spy movies on my radar!

Guillam is the head of "the scalphunters," the dirty tricks branch of the Secret Service, roughly equilivant to the Sandbaggers or the Section or the Minders or the Double-O's in various other fictions.  He becomes Smiley's ally in ferreting out the mole inside The Circus (as MI6 is referred to in Le Carré's world) by virtue of being young enough to rule out as a suspect himself.  (At 34, Cumberbatch might be just a tad too young... but certainly close enough.)  Michael Jayston (who went on to play 007 in a BBC radio adaptation of "You Only Live Twice") played Guillam in the 1979 mini-series version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring Alec Guinness; Michael Byrne (Saracen) stepped into the role for the 1982 follow-up, Smiley's People. 

Cumberbatch, who also made another movie about a mole hunt at MI6, The Cambridge Spies, looks on track for Hollywood stardom. Besides this, he's also been cast in Steven Spielberg's next movie, Warhorse.  Let's hope Gatiss and Steven Moffat and the BBC have him locked down for at least a few more seasons as Holmes!