Tradecraft: XXX Director Develops New Spy Series

Deadline reports that xXx director Rob Cohen, who's currently prepping the previously announced xXx: The Return of Xander Cage which reunites him with Vin Diesel, has teamed up with Sleeper Cell co-creators Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris to develop a new spy TV series for ABC. The trade blog describes the series as being "in the vein of RED and The Expendables ... a fun action-adventure show about a team of old-school CIA covert operatives (kick-ass soldier-spies) who won the Cold War in the Eighties but were then forced out due to budget-cuts in the early 1990s. Now, they have been recruited to go back to work for their country by the chief of the Special Activities Division, a go-getter young woman who is also the team leader's estranged daughter."  Even if the pitch sounds kind of assembly line, team shows like this certainly hold a lot of potential to be fun and entertaining. I don't particularly cotton to the term "kick-ass soldier-spies," but I do like the notion of old-school Cold War spies coming out of retirement.  We're seeing a lot of that lately, from RED to Shane Black's Cold Warrior (which is presumably looking for a new star now, since Mel Gibson isn't in any position to open a movie) and that upcoming Richard Gere movie, Double. Reiff and Voris are scripting the pilot for this new series.