Tradecraft: Denzel Shifts Spy Allegiances

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Denzel Washington will still be making a spy movie next, despite the fast that the Robert Ludlum adaptation he's long been attached to, The Matarese Circle, is caught in that same MGM Hell as James Bond.  But he's switched sides.  Instead of being a good guy like he would have been in Matarese, Washington will play a bad guy in Safe House, a project we first heard about in March when Universal snapped up David Guggenheim's spec script.  According to the trade, his role will be that of a "dangerous prisoner being escorted through mencaing territory by a young CIA agent."  The article offers this recap of the project's plot: "The storyline follows the only surviving agent of an attack on a CIA safe house as he tries to get a lethal prisoner to a second safe house before being taken out by violent forces that want them both dead."  Daniel Espinosa (Snabba Cash) directs.  Deadline adds that Star Trek's Chris Pine has supposedly tested for the part of the young agent, but it's unlikely that we'll see the pair reteam after this fall's Unstoppable.  The Hollywood Reporter offers some hope for Ludlum fans, in that it still calls The Matarese Circle "on the actor's horizon," even if it's also "frozen amid the financial troubles of MGM" for now.