Park Chan-Wook to Direct le Carré Miniseries THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL, According to Daily Mail

Bart Forbes' frontispiece for the 1983 Knopf limited edition

I don't normally post news items originating in UK tabloids, but this is too dynamite to let pass. And besides, it comes from The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye, who has proven time and again to be the exception to the tabloid rule, and provided many solid scoops in the past. His track record with spy movies (and particularly James Bond) is especially good. According to Bamigboye, the next BBC/AMC John le Carré miniseries production following the enormous success of The Night Manager will be The Little Drummer Girl, based on the author's 1983 novel. Once again, The Ink Factory (le Carré's sons' production company) will produce, and once again they've proven to have impeccable taste when it comes to directors. Bamigboye reports that legendary Korean director Park Chan-Wook will helm! For those of you familiar with the auteur's work, let that sink in and bask in the sheer awesomeness of the possibility. For those of you who don't know, Park, like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy helmer Tomas Alfredson, is a master visual stylist. While he has directed a spy-themed movie before, 2000's Joint Security Area, he is better known for his Vengeance Trilogy, which includes his most famous film, Oldboy. He also helmed the stellar and unique vampire tale Thirst, the Hitchcockian English-language suspense film Stoker, and the sublime 2016 erotic con artist thriller The Handmaiden, based on the Sarah Waters novel Fingersmith. (For my money, that one's his masterpiece to date.) I would be excited about any Park Chan-Wook miniseries. And I would be excited (obviously!) about any John le Carré miniseries. Put together, I'm ecstatic! I really, really hope that Bamigboye is on the money this time.

According to the report, British actress Florence Pugh, who shot to fame with this year's Lady Macbeth and will next be seen as Cordelia to Anthony Hopkins' King Lear in a star-studded BBC production, will take on the lead role of Charlie, a naive young actress recruited by Israeli Intelligence into the "theatre of the real"--to infiltrate a Palestinian terror organization. She soon finds herself seduced by both sides and caught in the middle. Bamigboye reports that the 6-part miniseries will shoot in 2018 and retain the novel's late Seventies/early Eighties setting (though the subject matter obviously still rings topical today). The Little Drummer Girl was previously filmed by George Roy Hill as a feature in 1984, starring a notoriously miscast Diane Keaton.

Locations in the novel include London, Mykonos, Munich, Vienna, Bonn and Tel Aviv, but there's no way of knowing at this stage which ones will be used in the miniseries. (Key book locations were changed and omitted from The Night Manager.) Bamigboye does report, however, that Park "intends to make good use of locations."

This is a very, very exciting project that I'll certainly be keeping a close eye on. Let's hope for some official announcements soon!

Thanks to Casey and Clarissa for the heads-up on this one!