Tradecraft: Like Bourne, But Not

The favorite logline for any new spy project made in the last half of this decade has to be, "like Bourne."  And now we've got yet another one in the pipeline.  Of course, the good news is that most of them aren't really that much like Bourne at all; agents and flacks just say they are to get studio execs seeing dollar signs.  The Hollywood Reporter reports that "Bold Films has acquired Blank Slate, an action thriller spec script from Doug Cook and David Weisberg, the writing team behind The Rock and Double Jeopardy." And what's Blank Slate?  Here it comes: according to the trade, "Slate, described as a female-oriented take on The Bourne Identity, involves the CIA which, in order to investigate a murdered female agent, implants the agent's memories into the damaged brain of a female convict. The agent's lethal abilities also are implanted, and soon the convict goes rogue to discover the truth about the murder."  So you see, like Bourne but... not really.