Trailer for Famke Janssen in Blacklist Spinoff Redemption

NBC has released a trailer for The Blacklist: Redemption, the new spinoff of their hit series The Blacklist starring the always awesome Famke Janssen (GoldenEye) as the leader of a team of former spies and criminals seeking redemption for their past transgressions by using their espionage skills to solve problems official government agencies don't dare touch. Sounds like The Equalizer meets Leverage. I don't watch The Blacklist, but I'll watch anything with Janssen in it, so I'll be giving this one a try for sure! The Blacklist: Redemption premieres Thursday, February 23 at 10/9c on NBC, filling in the eight week hiatus of The Blacklist.

Paul Gulacy Paints Flint Tribute with Nick Fury, Black Widow and Shang-Chi

Paul Gulacy, a comic book artist instantly synonymous with spies thanks to his stellar work on titles like James Bond 007: Serpents Tooth and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, has revealed a new piece on his website that will be of particular interest to fans of the genre. The commission recreates Bob Peak's famous poster art for In Like Flint with Marvel spy heroes like Nick Fury, Black Widow (a la Maud Adams), Shang-Chi, Clive Reston and Leiko Wu. I particularly love seeing Fury in the Flint pose, as James Coburn would have certainly made an excellent Nick Fury at one time! (His role in Hudson Hawk, though not patched, actually feels of a piece to some degree with the Fake Nick Furies that populated filmdom prior to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like Charlton Heston in True Lies, Angelina Jolie in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and a pre-Fury Sam Jackson in xXx.) Interestingly, Gulacy drew a spot-on Coburn as the hero of a horror comic that ran in Eerie Magazine in 1979. His epic espionage saga Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu (written by frequent collaborator Doug Moench) is currently (finally!) being reprinted by Marvel in massive hardcover Omnibus editions, which are worth every penny of their somewhat steep price tag. Here's the iconic original poster that inspired this awesome painting:

Tradecraft: BBC and AMC to Re-team on Spy Who Came in from the Cold Miniseries

We learned last summer that the next John le Carré miniseries would be a new adaptation of his seminal 1963 novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Now we know the networks that will air it. Unsurprisingly, given the tremendous success of The Night Manager on both sides of the Atlantic and its three Golden Globe wins last week, the BBC and AMC will again partner on this new Spy, Deadline reports.

As previously reported, The Ink Factory and Paramount Television put the project into development in June, with Slumdog Millionaire Oscar winner Simon Beaufoy taking on the unenviable challenge of adapting one of the greatest spy novels of all time. (Goldfinger's Paul Dehn wrote the script for the classic 1965 feature version along with the author.) "The old lion himself," as Hugh Laurie described le Carré at the Globes ceremony, provided a quote for the press release, saying about the new "limited series" (as miniseries are now known), "I’m very excited by the project, and have great confidence in the team." Cast and director have yet to be announced.

Read my book review of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold here.

Tradecraft: Archer Moves to FXX (UPDATED)

When Archer comes back for its eighth season it will be on a different channel. Deadline reports that the animated spy comedy is moving from its cable home of seven seasons, FX, to FXX, another Fox-owned cable station to which a lot of FX comedies and cartoons have already migrated. This move was originally planned for last season. In July, Archer was renewed through Season 10 and we learned that the upcoming Season 8 would shift milieus from its nebulous Cold War/present spy setting to 1940s detective. This won't be the first format change for the series, and the characters will remain true to themselves despite the new setting. Watch a new trailer below: