First RED SPARROW Trailer

Fox has released the first trailer for Red Sparrow, Francis Lawrence's film of the bestselling Jason Matthews novel. Last year, the book made my list of the ten best spy novels written during the decade I've been writing this blog, so obviously the movie is one I'm really looking forward to... albeit trepidatiously. Joel Edgerton is definitely not who I pictured as Nate Nash, and I'm dubious of convincing chemistry between him and star Jennifer Lawrence (sixteen years his junior), which is crucial to the story. But overall, this trailer looks pretty faithful to the novel, and quite promising! One major change from the book, however, has already been reported by The Hollywood Reporter. According to that trade, real-life Russian president Vladimir Putin, a key character in the novel (and more so in its sequel), has been cut from the film, allegedly over fears of Interview-style retaliation from Russian hackers. Additionally, one of the novel's primary settings, Helsinki, has been replaced by the more familiar and less exotic (though cheaper) Budapest. Red Sparrow opens March 2, 2018, and Matthews' final novel in the trilogy, The Kremlin's Candidate (whose plot has changed somewhat since it was first announced, either because of or despite its similarity to world events), comes out a few weeks prior.