Tradecraft: Rob Cohen Spies Again

xXx director Rob Cohen is eyeing another high-octane, extreme sort of spy movie. Deadline reports that he'll follow up his I, Alex Cross reboot with Bullet Run. I couldn't begin to do justice to the high concept premise hatched by writer Andrew Hilton, so I'll defer to the trade blog's capsule summary: "The head of an elite private protection team and his former CIA agent wife infiltrate the closed borders of Iran to abduct a man who killed their daughter. The extraction goes awry and they force to rely on their world-class driving skills and a fleet of high-performance street cars to travel 200 miles through a hail of bullets to keep alive the man they really want dead." I'm not a fan of xXx, but I am a fan of high performance cars traveling 200mph through a hail of bullets in the Iranian desert. Therefore I'll reserve judgement.

Tradecraft: Brianna Brown Joins Homeland

Another actress has headed for Homeland. The Hollywood Reporter reports that former General Hospital regular Brianna Brown has joined the CIA drama from erstwhile 24 producers Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa in a potential recurring role. According to the trade, the 31-year-old actress, who has also graced a number of Judd Apatow productions including Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, will play Lynne Reed, a statuesque former Miss Ohio "who spent two years in the harem of Prince Farid Bin Abbud and who now works as his procurer, using her looks and smarts as commerce." Claire Danes stars as a CIA agent who suspects that a recently returned American POW (Damian Lewis) has been turned by Al Qaeda and plans to perpetrate an attack on US soil. Mandy Patankin plays her Agency superior. Homeland airs this fall on Showtime. You can watch a trailer here.

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!

Tradecraft: Noir is Go

Nikita will soon have company in the female assassin sweepstakes on TV. According to Deadline, the cable channel Starz has officially greenlit Noir, the live action remake of an anime amnesiac assassin series that we heard they were developing late last year. Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, the powerhouse producing duo behind such TV hits as Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess and Spartacus: Blood and Sand (also on Starz), as well noble misses in the spy genre like Jack of All Trades (starring a pre-Burn Notice Bruce Campbell) and Spy Game, will mastermind the show along with executive producers Steven Lightfoot (who penned the pilot) and Joshua Donen (who has partnered with Raimi and Tapert on Spartacus and Legend of the Seeker). Robert Ludlum tapped some sort of hidden vein with his 1980 bestseller The Bourne Identity, and ever since assassins and amnesia have been forever linked in the public psyche. The well-regarded anime series focuses on two female assassins suffering from the condition who discover they're mysteriously linked together and team up to battle a powerful secret society.

Tradecraft: Jason Statham's Killer Elite Set For September

Deadline reports that first-time distributor Open Road has set a September 23 US release date for the Jason Statham/Clive Owen spy thriller Killer Elite. As we heard last month, Killer Elite is not a remake of the 1975 Sam Peckinpah movie of the same name, but an adaptation of the non-fiction novel The Feather Men, written by Ranulph Fiennes (a cousin of Ralf's). Statham plays a highly-skilled special ops agent sent to infiltrate a secretive group of ex-SAS operatives led by Owen. In a whirlwind adventure that jumps from Australia to Paris to Wales to Dubai, he and his team must take down a rogue cell of solider-assassins before their actions result in a global political meltdown. Robert DeNiro and Chuck's Yvonne Strahovski round out the killer spy cast.

New Bond Author Jeffery Deaver On Spy Tradecraft

What better way to celebrate today's release of Jeffery Deaver's new James Bond continuation novel Carte Blanche than heading on over to The Wall Street Journal to read the author's primer on espionage tradecraft, "Lessons Learned From Bond—James Bond?"  It's a really good overview of the basics of spying that shows that Deaver has done his research and clearly enjoyed his foray into the world of secret agents.  Deaver offers tips worthy of Michael Westen (or William Johnson) on what to do if you think you're being tailed, how to forge a signature, and how to choose good dead drops, among other things.

Tradecraft: Cruise Reaches For Reacher

I have to admit, I haven't read any of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels.  My impression is that they're not really spy thrillers, but do tread fairly closely to the genre.  And I know Child considers Ian Fleming, Len Deighton and John Le Carré to be influences on his work.  I've read one spy story that he penned for Otto Penzler's excellent anthology of "international thrillers," Agents of Treachery, and thought it was excellent.  It left me really wishing that Child would pen a straight-up spy novel, but also intrigued to check out his Jack Reacher books.  As I say, I don't know much about Reacher, but one thing I do know is that he's tall--very tall.  Which is why it's a little surprising that Deadline reports that notoriously short spy star Tom Cruise is in final negotiations to play the part!  According to the trade blog, "Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions are negotiating with Tom Cruise to star this fall in One Shot, a thriller based on the Lee Child book series about former military policeman-turned drifter Jack Reacher. Christopher McQuarrie will direct his script." Apparently Child himself is fine with the casting.  (You probably would be too if one of the biggest movie stars in the world wanted to attach himself to your property.  Ian Fleming, no doubt gleeful at the prospect of his famous character being filmed, once wrote that he'd be fine with Jimmy Stewart playing 007 if it meant Alfred Hitchcock would direct!)  "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way," Child reasoned.  Hm.  I can't really comment, but perhaps some avid readers of this series will chime in with their views on this casting.  Have your say below.

Tradecraft: Thor's Jamie Alexander Signs Up For Covert Affairs

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jamie Alexander, who made quite a memorable impression as the goddess Sif in Thor, will join USA's Covert Affairs for at least three episodes this season. The trade reports that Alexander will play a CIA techie named Reva Kline, "an attractive brunette in her thirties who was the youngest person to ever land a project in the CIA's Directorate of Science & Technology." Annie Walker (Piper Perabo) finds it a challenge to work with Reva thanks to the young techie's inability to socialize with others.

In other Covert Affairs casting news, ubiquitous movie baddie Peter Stormare (Fargo, Armageddon, The Tuxedo) has landed a guest spot in one of Alexander's episodes as Belarusian security agent Max Kupala. His character will abduct Annie and Reva on the Poland-Belarus border in hopes of ransoming the American agents. Stormare recently guest starred on an episode of Hawaii Five-0.

Covert Affairs returns for a second season tonight at 10PM on USA.

Tradecraft: More Salt For Jolie

Though it seemed inevitable from the film’s ending that wasn’t an ending at all (and from its box office success), Deadline reports that a sequel to Salt is finally officially underway. Kurt Wimmer, who penned the first film (originally written for a man—at one point, Tom Cruise), has been hired to write a follow-up for Sony Pictures. As long as she’s happy with the script he comes up with, Angelina Jolie is reportedly keen to do another Salt movie. One key creative force unlikely to be involved, however, is director Phillip Noyce, who revealed last December that he felt that between the three (radically) different cuts available on the DVD and Blu-ray, he’s said everything he has to say on the subject of Evelyn Salt. That’s too bad, because I thought Noyce’s low-key, old-school action direction was the most appealing aspect of Salt. Personally, I hope the sequel feels more like the relatively grounded, action-heavy first half of the original film, and less like the way over-the-top conspiracy-laden second half.

Read my review of Salt (2010) here.

Tradecraft: Morena Baccarin Heads For Homeland

Deadline reports that Morena Baccarin (Firefly, V) has joined the cast of Showtime's Homeland, the new spy series from 24 producers Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa.  The Serenity actress will play Jessica Brody, the "strong, smart wife" of rescued POW Marine Sergeant Scott Brody (Damian Lewis). Driven CIA agent Carrie Anderson (Claire Danes) believes that Brody has been turned during his time in captivity, and now represents a Manchurian Candidate-like threat to homeland security.  Baccarin replaces Laura Fraser, who played that part in the pilot.  Many people (myself included) fully expected Joss Whedon to cast his Firefly star as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill in his movie of Marvel's superhero squad The Avengers (no relation to the TV show), but instead he opted for How I Met Your Mother's Cobie Smulders.  Now Baccarin ends up in a spy project anyway—even if she's not playing an agent.

Watch the exciting teaser for Homeland, which debuts this fall, here.

Secret Service Academy

No, Mahoney and the gang aren't moving up in the world. Rather, Deadline reports that Universal is developing a fact-based movie about the U.S. Secret Service's recruiting and training program. According to the trade blog, "the studio has optioned a [fascinating 2009] cover story in the Washington Post Magazine by Laura Blumenfeld, and set Greg Poirier to write the script.... Blumenfeld went through the training program to write her article and it included shooting weapons, hand-to-hand combat, psychological and other training methods." So, sort of like The Recruit, but with the Secret Service instead of the CIA? And hopefully better? While Poirier's produced credits like The Spy Next Door and National Treasure: Book of Secrets might not inspire much confidence in this project, he also created ABC's upcoming fall spy series Missing, and that pilot was an excellent read. Based on that alone, I'd be excited for his next script even if the premise didn't sound this interesting. Deadline goes on to reveal that "the Secret Service differs from most law-enforcement branches in that applicants don't need a law enforcement background to apply [lending] an everyman aspect to a film that will follow a group of aspirants who go through the training program to become agents."

Tradecraft: US Distribution Locked For Jason Statham/Clive Owen Spy Movie Killer Elite

Deadline reports that AMC Theaters' new distribution arm Open Road has acquired the action spy movie Killer Elite for US distribution this fall. In Killer Elite, we'll get to see Jason Statham go up against Clive Owen. As if that weren't already a killer spy cast, the film also stars Robert DeNiro and Chuck's Yvonne Strahovski. Statham will play Danny Bryce, "one of the world's most skilled special ops agents," who's lured out of retirement when his old comrades start being murdered. He assembles what's left of his old team to rescue his mentor (DeNiro), but to do so he'll need to infiltrate a secretive group of ex-SAS operatives led by Clive Owen. According to the press release, "Danny and his team must take down a rogue cell of solider assassins before their actions result in a global political meltdown. [The] whirlwind action crosses the globe from Australia to Paris, Wales, London, Dubai and Oman." Despite the somewhat similar subject matter, this is not a remake of the 1975 Sam Peckinpah movie of the same name starring James Caan and Robert Duval; the Statham Killer Elite is instead based on a "non-fiction novel" called The Feather Men by Ranulph Fiennes.  With that cast, it's just become one of my own most anticipated movies of the fall!

Tradecraft: Only One Spy Show On USA's New Development Slate

Deadline has a report from USA's upfront presentation in New York last week revealing the cable network's current development slate, and, somewhat surprisingly, only one of the shows on the docket is about spies.  While one out of thirteen ain't bad by normal standards, USA is a network and a brand largely based on the success of spy series, like Burn Notice (which set the template for their current slate of successes), Covert Affairs and (going way back) La Femme Nikita. Here's the official synopsis of the one for spy fans to keep their eyes on—one of several recent shows or pilots that seems to owe a bit to Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

HARD COVER (One hour drama)

The best undercover operative can blend in anywhere and be completely unassuming. Then who better to go on assignment than a middle-aged Mom working with a rogue FBI agent? Writer/Executive Producers are Peter Paige and Brad Bredeweg. Executive Producer is Laurie Zaks (Castle). From Universal Cable Productions.

Tradecraft: NBC Renews Chuck; Fox Cancels Human Target, Retools Exit Strategy

With all the major networks' upfront presentations just around the corner, now's when we start to hear about which new pilots have been picked up to series and which current shows have been cancelled.  Fox got the ball rolling yesterday by announcing that Human Target has been cancelled, which is too bad.  It was a fun, light-weight action hour the likes of which you don't see much on TV these days.  It was somewhat surprising that Exit Strategy, a high-profile pilot from hitmakers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (whose spy cred includes Alias, Jack of All Trades, Mission: Impossible III and the current reimagining of Hawaii Five-O) starring Ethan Hawke, was not announced as a pickup... yet.  The Hollywood Reporter reports that that pilot may yet find life at the network after being "retooled." The only problem with that plan, according to the trade, is that pilot director Antoine Fuqua is scheduled to shoot a film this summer. Deadline gets more specific about the retooling, adding that "Fox brass felt the pilot had a lot of action and not too much character in it, so they had been looking to shift the focus on the show." Having loved the Mission: Impossible-like premise but read an early version of the pilot script that I found hugely disappointing, the retooling sounds like a good idea.  (To be fair, I hear that Kurtzman and Orci themselves did a pass on the script subsequent to the draft I read, so that may have addressed some of my issues.)  But I'm not sure if that shift in focus is going in the right direction.  In the initial script, the characterizations were by far the worst part.  Hopefully they're re-building them from the ground up, and not just building up what's already there and already bad.  Guess we'll see.  I'm still curious about this show, and still rooting for it to make it to the air just because I think there's a place for a Mission: Impossible type series on network television.

But the big news (and unexpected) is that, according to a Deadline report, NBC has once again renewed the perennially endangered Chuck! I'm glad to hear it, because I thought Chuck had a great season this year, thanks to a Timothy Dalton injection. Still, it suffered ever declining ratings, so the pick-up comes as a bit of a surprise.  Just like last year, the hour-long spy comedy has been given an initial order of just 13 episodes.  If other shows do poorly (as happened this season), more episodes could be ordered.  Unfortunately, that kind of makes it hard for the writers to plot a full season.  That's why so many of this year's plots (including the Dalton thread) were tied up so neatly in a mid-season episode that seemed like a finale.  Then the poor writers had to struggle to stretch them out further when more episodes were called for.

That just leaves the CW's Nikita as far as on-the-bubble spy series go.  After a less than promising start, it turned out to be one of the best new spy series of the season, so I hope it makes the cut. Pilot-wise, I'm also curious about the J.J. Abrams/Jonah Nolan Equalizer-meets-Matt Huston show Person of Interest (a millionaire sponsors a former spy to help the helpless in New York) on NBC and Meet Jane on Lifetime.  Deadline reported last month that Meet Jane was not picked up by the cable network in this round, but may still have life left in it after a retooling of its own.  I suspect we'll hear very soon about Person of Interest, since NBC has already started announcing pick-ups.  Fortunately, my favorite spy pilot script of the season, Missing, already has a 13-episode order from ABC and is currently shooting in Europe.

Tradecraft: Clive Owen Spies Again

Clive Owen has signed on for another spy role.  The actor will play an MI5 agent in Shadow Dancer, a co-production of Paramount and BBC Films, reports Deadline.  Man on Wire helmer James Marsh will direct this tale of "an IRA sympathizer who is arrested after an aborted bombing attempt in London and has to decide whether to turn against her cause or spend her life in prison." Owen will play the MI5 officer trying to turn her. Andrea Riseborough, Aidan Gillen and Gillian Anderson co-star; Tom Bradby has penned the script based on his own novel. Filming begins later this month in Dublin.

Tradecraft: TWC Picks Up Newest Movie From OSS 117 Team

The Artist is not a spy movie, but it's one I'm very eager to see!  This is the next movie from the director/star team of Michel Hazanavicius and Jean Dujardin, a duo who should be very familiar to spy fans from their two OSS 117 spoof movies.  I love those movies and, in my book, these guys can do no wrong!  Looks like The Weinstein Company feels the same way, because Deadline reports that they've snatched up this silent, black and white dramady in the first big acquisition deal of this year's Cannes Film Festival.  They must be pretty confident in it, too, because besides shelling out a seven-figure minimum guarantee, TWC plans to release The Artist during Oscar season this fall!  According to the trade blog, the film takes place in 1927 Hollywood and "focuses on a silent movie star whose career seems about to be ended because of the arrival of the talkies. At the same time, a pretty young extra sees the new format as an opportunity to launch her star."  Dujardin's OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies co-star (and Hazanavicius' wife) Bernice Bejo co-stars, along with John Goodman, James Cromwell, Missi Pyle and Penelope Ann Miller.  I've been looking forward to this since I first heard about it last summer, and I'm so glad to know that it's got a US distributor lined up!  Dujardin is not only a master of comic timing, but also of exaggerated facial expressions, so I expect he'll shine in a silent movie.  Plus, it's a good way for the French-speaker to make a big splash with international audiences.

Read my film review of OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies here.
Read my DVD review of OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies here.
Read my film review of OSS 117: Lost in Rio here.

Read my DVD review of OSS 117: Lost in Rio here.

Tradecraft: Rachel Weisz Sought For Bourne Role

Uh-oh.  Will James Bond's girlfriend leave him for rival spy Jason Bourne?  Could be.  Deadline reports that Daniel Craig's real-life squeeze Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener) is in talks to co-star with Jeremy Renner in Tony Gilroy's Bourne spin-off movie, The Bourne Legacy.  Sounds good to me!  Weisz is an excellent actress and a good match for Renner, and I've always wanted to see her in a spy movie.  (Though I would have preferred Bond.)  Unfortunately, she's also in talks to star in Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful, and the shooting schedules overlap, so she might not be able to do both movies.  She'd make a good wicked witch, too, so I hope she's able to make it all work out.

Tradecraft: Image Acquires The Double

Deadline reports that Image Entertainment has closed a pre-Cannes deal to distribute the Richard Gere spy thriller The Double in the United States.  I've been following this one for a while now, and was curious to see the directing debut of Michael Brandt, who, along with his partner Derek Haas, wrote 3:10 To Yuma and Wanted, as well as such still unmade spy fare as the Robert Ludlum adaptation The Matarese Circle. (held up indefinitely thanks to MGM's troubles) and Matt Helm (still in development, with Paul Attanasio penning the most recent draft)—and The Double. Gere plays a Cold War CIA operative called out of retirement to help a young FBI agent (Topher Grace) track a Russian assassin of Gere's own vintage.  Quantum of Solace Bond Girl Stana Katic rounds out the cast as a Russian prostitute.  While the acquisition sounds like good news, I'm not sure it is.  So far, Image's M.O. with their acquisitions has been to basically dump them directly to DVD after a very brief and very limited contractually obligated theatrical run a week or two in advance of that.  So unless they're expanding their distribution arm, this might mean that most people won't get to see The Double in theaters.  I hope that's not the case. 

Tradecraft: Mission: Impossible Writer Tackles Jack Ryan

Another month, another screenwriter on the interminably long-in-development Jack Ryan origin film.  Following a succession of scribes that's included Hossein Amini, Adam Cozad, Anthony Peckham, Cozad again and, briefly, Steve Zaillian (who changed his mind before actually contributing a draft), Paramount has now turned to Big Bucks Franchise Man David Koepp to try his hand at rebooting Tom Clancy's famed CIA analyst in the person of Chris Pine.  Deadline reports that Koepp will be paid seven figures for his rewrite (still based on the Cozad draft), a fee he's earned from contributions to such mega-hit franchises as Jurassic Park, Spider-man, Men in Black and Indiana Jones, to name just a few of his blockbusters.  His most major previous contribution to the spy genre was collaborating on the screenplay for the first Mission: Impossible film with Zaillian and Robert Towne.  (I don't know which one of those writers came up with the brilliant idea of making Jim Phelps a traitor, but I'd like to give that one a punch in the face.)  According to the trade blog, Paramount hopes to start production on the new Jack Ryan movie in January, after Pine finishes with the Star Trek sequel.  (It was previously slated to film before Trek.)  Lost's Jack Bender, who must be a very patient man, is still attached to direct.

Tradecraft: The Balrog Supremacy?

The Saruman Ultimatum?  The Gondor Inheritance?  Unlikely as each of those titles may sound, Deadline reports that Ron Howard has attached himself to a pitch by Max Landis described as a blend of Robert Ludlum and J.R.R. Tolkien.  That's not very descriptive, but actually opens up a lot of truly intriguing possibilities!  A Bourne-like spy adventure set in a fantasy world?  A real-world spy story featuring an all-powerful One Ring as the MacGuffin?  Or a regular person from our world who washes ashore in a fantasy land with no memories?  You could go in lots of different creative directions with that curious mash-up, and I'd probably pay to see nearly all of them.  Max Landis is the son of John Landis, and previously collaborated with his father on episodes of the spooky anthology shows Masters of Horror ("The Deer Woman") and Fear Itself.  He's also sold a few feature specs, though nothing that's been made yet.  As for this one, it seems unlikely it will be made any time soon with Ron Howard attached to direct. Howard's currently committed to direct about a billion hours of feature film and television based on Stephen King's Dark Tower epic, which also features a mixture of fantasy and technothriller.  What I wonder, though, is what ever happened to that film of undiluted Ludlum that Howard was once attached to direct, The Parsifal Mosaic?  Even if he's no longer involved, I do hope it's still in development.  That's one of Ludlum's most cinematic novels, and a great movie just waiting to be made. 

Oh, and the real title of this spy/fantasy project is Amnesty.  Hm.  Doesn't really get across the premise.  In the unlikely scenario that they do decide to switch to a title more befitting the illlicit marriage of Ludlum and Tolkien, I think my personal choice would be The Frodo Ambiguity.  It has a nicer ring to it than Amnesty, does't it?