Tradecraft: Paul Greengrass Boards Fox Series About Intelligence Community

Tradecraft: Paul Greengrass Boards Fox Series About Intelligence Community

Deadline reports that two-time Bourne director Paul Greengrass has come aboard former CIA officer Joe Weisberg's untitled drama about the U.S. Intelligence Community that we first heard about a few weeks ago. Greengrass will executive produce alongside Weisberg and Brian Grazer (24), and it's possible he might also direct the pilot. That prospect excites me. I praised Doug Liman for bringing his put-you-in-the-middle-of-it Bourne sensibilities to the cramped conference rooms and cubicles of Langley in the more realistic spy movie Fair Game (review here). I'll equally welcome Greengrass's signature style applied to a similarly realistic scenario, which is what it sounds like Weisberg is developing. The trade blog describes this new series, from Fox Television, as "a high-stakes character-based drama centering on the young assistants of high-ranking officers in the U.S. Intelligence community. The show takes place within the walls of the CIA, as well as the DIA, NSA, FBI and the intelligence components at the White House." If it turns out to be a West Wing of the spy world with Greengrass's urgent camera work rushing us from crisis to crisis amidst petty office politics and inter-agency in-fighting, then I will be very happy to watch! I haven't read Weisberg's novel An Ordinary Spy, but I ordered it from Amazon (where it's super cheap) after first learning about this series, and I'm looking forward to reading it. I'm very keen to see how this one develops. While I detest most of Greengrass's imitators, I enjoy his own spy movies immensely, particularly The Bourne Ultimatum (review here) and Green Zone (review here).