Tradecraft: Mirren Spy Movie The Debt Gets Distribution

Deadline reports that The Debt finally has a distributor.  I know I covered this movie here a long time ago, when it was first announced, but I can't find that post.  Suffice it to say, it was completed a while ago and has been a victim of Miramax's uncertain future, sitting on a shelf despite a very fine pedigree.  Now the Miramax situation has been resolved, and Focus Features and Universal Pictures International will release director John Madden's espionage thriller on August 31, 2011.  The story of The Debt, crafted by screenwriters Matthew Vaughn & Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class) and Peter Straughan (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) and adapted from the 2007 Israeli film Ha-Hov, unfolds in two time periods: the Sixties and today.  (Have I ever mentioned how much I love spy movies set in the Sixties?)  Spy veterans Helen Mirren (RED), Tom Wilkinson (The Ghost Writer) and Ciarán Hinds (Munich) play a trio of retired Mossad agents in the present, while Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington and Marton Csokas (The Bourne Supremacy) play the same characters in 1966, when they were active operatives tasked with capturing a Nazi war criminal (Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace's Jesper Christensen, who certainly looks the part!) in East Berlin.  "At great risk, and at considerable personal cost," according to the Focus press release, "the team’s mission was accomplished – or was it? The suspense builds in and across two different time periods, with startling action and surprising revelations."  The rather awesome trailer has been out for a while: